


Heaven's Gate

by AmazinglyMediocre



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, F/M, I'm Bad At Tagging, Mistaken Identity, also there's some language, cryogenic freezing, seriously this is basically an AU, seriously this is going to be some angst, tbh there's more language than i thought there would be, this is kind of a wreck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-03-08 16:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13462059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmazinglyMediocre/pseuds/AmazinglyMediocre
Summary: It all went bad from the moment Nora used the Institute relay.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone! i'm apologizing in advance for the formatting on this stupid chapter and basically everything else i write; i write my stories in word and copy/paste them over, so some formatting is (obviously) lost. just pretend everything has a proper indent on it and all that jazz
> 
> also, this work is somewhat inspired by "Heaven's Gate" by Fall Out Boy. (or something like that. i think maccready's story works so well with the lyrics to that song) I'm not sure how/if I'll actually incorporate the song into the fic because much of it was already drafted before MANIA came out :)
> 
> enjoy!

“Listen, I’m not going to carry all that crap,” MacCready watched her gather aluminum cans and fuses into her arms and pack.

            “Yes you are,” she gave him a cheery smile and dumped the whole lot into his arms, several cans clattering to the ground as she did so. So much for that.

            “Fine,” he stuffed the junk into his bag and started picking the dropped items up off of the floor. They both knew he couldn’t tell her no, but he had to complain anyways. “Do you just like collecting garbage, or…?”

            “No, I need this stuff for the relay system.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “There’s not enough junk in the whole world to build that thing and all the generators I need to power it.”

            “What’s a relay system? And why don’t you bring Danse to carry all this sh—I mean, crap?” He scuffed the toe of his boot on the floor, feeling the sole of it peel back. It was time to rip new boots off of some unfortunate raider or vendor. Maybe Fallon would have some. Of course, that meant getting into Diamond City.

            “Are you listening?” Nora looked somewhat annoyed, though he couldn’t quite tell with her eyes hidden behind those ugly glasses. She called them fashionable, but they looked cheap to him. Too big for her face? He preferred being able to see her whole expression, but she did what she wanted.

            “What?” He blinked. “Sorry, zoned for a minute. The relay system?”

            The annoyed look on her face changed into a quirky smile. “You’re a mess,” she looked back towards the toolboxes in front of her. “What I said was that Danse would just be a problem here. I’m building this relay to get into the Institute, and I don’t need him talking my ear off about duty and honor.” She sighed, her shoulders sagging for a minute. “Besides, he doesn’t really understand the whole Shaun thing. He doesn’t understand why I’m going so far to find him.”

            “Oh,” he nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. Shaun hit a little too close to home for him. He wasn’t about to tell her that, though he was sure she could feel it. “How are you going to get into the Institute with a relay thing? Isn’t that like mail on a terminal or something?” He pushed Duncan out of his head for the time being.

            Nora snorted. “No, it’s like teleportation. That’s how the Coursers get in and out, Sturges thinks. I saw it in Kellogg’s memories.” She pushed a ratty cover onto the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust.

            MacCready fought a sneeze, turning away to face the door. “I was never good with that science stuff,” he felt his breath hitch with a coming sneeze. “You dealt with—“ he pinched his nose to try and fight the sneeze down. “With Kell—Kellogg?”

            She straightened up and turned to look at him. “What are you doing?”

            “Sneeze,” he released his nose. “Done?” his voice was nasally with the sudden allergy attack.

            “I think so,” she scanned the room one last time as he started for the door. “And yeah, I did deal with Kellogg. Killed him in Fort Hagen because I thought he had Shaun.”

            MacCready suddenly sneezed, much louder and forceful than he expected. He smacked his forehead on the door with the force of it. Nora fell into a fit of laughter. So much for coming across like someone who was tough and actually useful in a fight. He pushed the door open and stepped out into the chilly Boston air. They were near the airport digging through empty houses and businesses because Nora wanted to and because she was paying him. And because he kind of liked her, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

            “I’m sorry,” she followed after him, still laughing. “Is your head alright?” she was bent over, hugging her stomach.

            “My head’s fine,” he couldn’t help but smile. “But my ego is a bit bruised.” He looked away from her when he heard a faint, though familiar, sound. “Hold on,” he switched his safety off and held the rifle a little closer. “Mongrels,” he whispered. The sound was growing louder little by little. It was the sound of overgrown claws clicking on the pavement and noses sniffing low to the ground.

            Nora’s humor faded as she raised her shotgun. He glanced behind them and barely had the chance to raise his rifle before one of the dogs was jumping on him. They fell to the ground as the dog snapped at him and tried to get past his rifle. It slung slobber in his face and its claws scrabbled at his chest.

            “MacCready!” Nora drove her heel into the dog’s side and blasted it with her shotgun as soon as MacCready rolled out of the way. He shoved himself forward onto one knee and hit another dog in the chest. They still had three more to deal with.

            She crippled one of them with a shot to the legs, sending it skidding to the ground in front of him. It snapped and snarled, ruined teeth reaching for his ankle. MacCready bashed the butt of his rifle into its head and shoved it away from him. Another shotgun blast rang in his ears, and then Nora was on the ground behind him. The air rushed from her lungs as the last dog lashed out.

            He didn’t hesitate for a moment, briefly seeing the fear in her eyes as he lined up the creature’s head in his sights and pulled the trigger. The mongrel’s head exploded into bloody chunks and it fell limp against her.

            “Are you okay?” He scrambled to his feet and pushed the body off of her.

            Nora nodded as she gasped for air. “Thanks,” she finally breathed. “If you were anyone else, I’d be scared you were taking that shot. How’d you know they were there?”

            He offered a hand and she took it, rising to her feet. “God, that’s disgusting,” he said as she tried to wipe her face off. She was spattered in blood from her shoulders up. Her blonde hair was stained and stuck to her face. “Anyways, they’re noisy. They’re like Dogmeat, but a whole lot louder,” he pulled his hat off for a moment and shook it out. They both paused at the sound of tiny clods of dirt hitting the ground.

            “That’s foul,” Nora made a face. “Don’t let me forget to find you some better clothes, or at least wash those out.”

            He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t realize the job came with benefits.”

            “That’s not a benefit,” she slung her shotgun back over her shoulder as he pulled the cap back on. “That’s for my own sanity.”

            “What, so you get to walk around with blood all over your face and I can’t walk around with a hat full of dirt?” He followed after her as she started down the street.

            She snorted. “That’s exactly how it is,” she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Now come on, we have crap to collect.”

            He only recognized his surprise and relief when they were walking away. She hadn’t left him. He couldn’t count the number of times he had gotten caught in a bad situation and simply been ditched and left to figure it out on his own. And she had stayed and risked her life for him. The caps in his pocket seemed to weigh just a little bit more.

            Nora continued to scavenge until well past nightfall, her seemingly aimless path leading them closer and closer to Boston itself. It made him nervous to stand in the dark and have only his ears to monitor their surroundings, even if his ears had already saved them once today. She would occasionally turn on the light on her pip-boy, which only made things worse. He could barely see beyond the glare of it.

            He eventually resigned himself to waiting outside for her. He could hear out in the open and he wasn’t bothered by her light. It gave him a chance to think, too.

Nora’s motives were incredibly hard to decipher even on the best of days. He couldn’t tell whose side she was on, if she was on one. As far as he knew, she was just in search of her stolen kid. Otherwise, she was becoming a larger and larger knot of commitments. One day she would be working with the Brotherhood to retake Cambridge or destroy some Super Mutant nest, and the next she would be liberating a synth with the Railroad. On top of it all, she was the general of the Minutemen.

He wondered when it would all catch up with her; when one faction would realize she was on everyone else’s side, too. MacCready’s eyes drifted to the hulking shape of the Prydwen where it sat across the river. He looked away when a gust of cold wind made him shudder. Winter was fast on its way.

 _Who knows_ , he thought. She was willing to defend a mercenary like him. Maybe she was willing to defend the whole Commonwealth regardless of how ugly it was. Either way, he hoped she would choose the right side. And he hoped she would find her son. If not for her kid’s sake, at least for her sake.

He sighed, taking a long drag on his cigarette. If only he could build some crazy contraption and teleport to Duncan. But he wasn’t that lucky.

He blew his thoughts away with his next exhale. He could be sad later, whenever later was.

“Don’t you think we should stop soon?” He leaned into the garage she was digging through. Her form was illuminated by the green glow of her pip-boy. “It’s getting a bit too dark for my comfort.”

            Nora blinked at him, then glanced down at her pip-boy. “It’s only seven,” she spoke as if he would know what she was talking about. He didn’t. They stared at each other for a long moment until realization dawned on her face. “Sorry,” she stood up and brushed the dust off of her knees. “I forget that there’s no easy way to keep track of time.”

            “Never has been,” he pushed himself off of the wall. “Where to?” He couldn’t really imagine having a time to each moment of the day; the days just went on. People went to sleep and woke up with the sun. Some still kept track of the days, but those people were few and far between.

            “Wherever,” Nora shrugged. “I have a room in the Rexford, if Goodneighbor’s not too far off.” She flicked the light off.

            “It’s not,” he stepped out into the middle of the street to wait, stomping out his cigarette. “All that’s between us and Goodneighbor is a bunch of raiders and a few super mutant camps.”

            “Nothing too bad, right?” She gave him a sideways smile as they started down the street. The dried blood on her face cracked and flaked with the movement.

            “Of course not,” he returned the smile and tugged his hat on tighter. They most likely weren’t going to make it to Goodneighbor without a fight. “Just risking our lives several times within the span of thirty minutes.”

            And yet, somehow, Nora managed to sneak the two of them around a group of raiders and directly past a tower full of super mutants. Or, as MacCready liked to call it, the biggest den of ugly he had ever seen. And then they were at the gates of Goodneighbor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's be real: maccready's watch doesn't work, even if it's on his character model. i really really doubt a watch like that would work after 200 years of decay!!
> 
> also i promise there will be more plot in the next chapters, it's just kind of flat right now (like entirely exposition but we'll pretend it's actually good)
> 
> feedback is always appreciated!! :)


	2. Chapter 2

            “If it isn’t my favorite mercenary,” Daisy called from her shop.

            “You know Daisy?” Nora glanced at him.

            “You don’t?” He gave her a look. “I’ll catch up.”

            “Whatever you say,” she fell into a fit of giggles as she walked off, muttering something that sounded like Big Mac, but he wasn’t sure. The heck was a Big Mac?

            “I see you’ve found Miss Nora,” Daisy rasped at him.

            He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the counter. “Nora found me, more like. Paid me to come with her.”

            “That’s what I thought,” she pulled out a dishrag and began to wipe down her side of the counter. “She seems to be your type of gal.”

            “You say that as if I have a type,” he sighed, lowering his head nearly to his hands.

            “Your boy’s on your mind again, huh?” She bent down and reached under the counter. “If anyone could help you, it would be Nora.” Her voice was halfway muffled.

He looked up again when a bottle of Gwinnett hit the counter in front of him. “I know,” he cracked the cap off and took a drink. “But that’s not what she’s paying me for. Besides, she ‘s looking for her own kid. I don’t need her worrying about mine, too, and I don’t need her risking her life to help me deal with Winlock and Barnes.”

“Oh, MacCready,” Daisy let out a dry laugh. “That woman is the general of the Minutemen. If anyone is going to help you find that cure or take down your gunner friends, it’s her. It’s her job. And do you really think she cares about what she paid you for?”

He paused for a long moment, taking another gulp of the beer and straightening up off of the counter. He wasn’t about to dump his problems on Nora. She had enough to deal with. “Thanks for the drink, Daisy,” he started to back away from the shop.

“Any time, MacCready,” she shooed him away with a wave of her hand.

He took his time walking to the Rexford. Daisy had a good point. And, despite how much the logical side of him balked at it, he wanted her help. She was the one who would be able to; the one who would be _willing_ to.

He’d learned early on that people didn’t like to help mercenaries like him. He was reminded of it by the low looks the Neighborhood Watch gave him and the whispers that followed like a shadow. People weren’t happy to see a mercenary hanging around, especially not someone who used to run with the Gunners.

Nora had hired him and pulled him out of the Third Rail. To do what? He knew she didn’t really care what the job description was or what his price was; she cared about having someone by her side. And he didn’t really want the caps anymore. Being on her side meant he didn’t need to worry about a place to stay or something to eat anymore. Maybe it would be better to give them back.

MacCready took the time to sit in the cold air and finish his beer. He only got up when the bottle was empty.

“There you are,” Nora looked up at him when he quietly pushed the door open. She was sitting on the bed, her shoulders wrapped in a blanket. “I was starting to wonder if you were coming back.” Her armor was dumped in a pile in the corner and she had changed into some ratty pajamas. Her face was clean and her hair was wet. Her skin seemed to glow, still healthy and mostly undamaged by the wasteland.

“Nah, just talking to Daisy,” he pulled his hat off and ran his fingers through his hair. “About the nicest ghoul you’ll ever meet.”

“It’s possible,” she glanced down at her pip-boy in her lap. “Probably one of the nicer people in the Commonwealth.”

“Her, or your goody-two-shoes Garvey,” he shrugged out of his coat and draped it over the desk chair. The back of the chair poked through the hole where one of his sleeves used to be.

“Preston tries,” Nora sighed, a note of sadness in her voice as she set her pip-boy aside. “He really does have a good heart, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” he unwound his scarf from his neck and laid it over the chair as well. “Makes people like me feel bad.” The band of ammo around his leg was next to come off.

“I’m washing all of your junk when we get back to the Castle,” Nora gave him a pointed look as he worked his way out of the rest of his gear, leaving him in his mud stained pants and off-white t shirt.

“Yeah, yeah,” he sat down on the bed and kicked his boots off. “I don’t see you washing everyone else’s clothes. Does that make me special?”

Nora laughed, the sadness temporarily leaving her. “Sure. It makes you especially dirty.”

“By the way, what did you call me earlier?” her smile grew even more.

“I called you a Big Mac,” she snickered. “It was a burger. Came from a restaurant called McDonald’s. Nate used to hate it because it was junk food, but I loved eating there.” Her smile faded a little, her eyes looking at something not quite there.

“What the heck is a burger?” He saw something familiar in her face, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. It made his skin crawl.

            Nora didn’t seem to hear him, lost in the middle of a thought. He left her alone, scooting back to sit against the wall. He stifled a yawn as exhaustion settled into his bones. She had to be way more exhausted than he was; she was still getting used to this hellish life she’d been dumped into.

            “Think of a burger like a Brahmin meat patty with a slice of tato between razorgrain bread buns,” she finally spoke. “That doesn’t really do it justice, but that’s the closest you could get.”

            “That’s so weird,” he snorted. “It sounds like something those fancy Diamond City snobs would eat.”

            Nora gave a breathy laugh. “Or something some crazy ghoul would come up with on a hit of Jet.” She pushed her still-damp hair out of her face. “Sometimes it seems like I dreamed up the whole world before the bombs. Like I came up with it all when I was on some chem.” She shifted over to lie down, keeping her feet tucked close to her body.

            She looked small like that, with her form wrapped up and tucked into a blanket with just her nappy hair sticking out. He was reminded that she really wasn’t native to the messed-up world they lived in; she was from a different time altogether. Maybe that was where she got her heart. Maybe people cared more back when they weren’t fighting for every single day.

            “Sometimes it sounds that way, yeah,” he looked at his hands. “But then you came along, and now I kind of get it.”

            Nora nodded and closed her eyes for a long moment. “I’ve spent all this time searching for Shaun, but I don’t know what I’m going to do once I find him.” She took a shuddering breath. “We can’t go back to the way things used to be. He’s practically been raised by Kellogg and by the Institute.”

            MacCready wondered for a moment if people were more transparent and open before the bombs fell. He somehow doubted it. “You’ll find your son,” he tried to put on his best face. “I’ll help you find him.”

            “Well yeah,” she didn’t quite laugh. “That’s what I’m paying you to do.”

            “Speaking of help,” the words were coming out before he could stop them. “Could you—I mean, would you—help me…” his voice trailed off. What was he doing? He hadn’t even been thinking about his issues, but here they were, making themselves known. He squirmed and pushed himself off of the bed.

            “MacCready,” Nora sat up. “What is it?”

            “I didn’t even mean to talk about this right now,” he groaned and flopped down in the cushioned chair across from the bed, covering his eyes with one hand. “I was here in Goodneighbor because I needed a place to set up shop. They would have run me out of Diamond City, and I’m too tight on caps to be wandering the Commonwealth.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t stop the words coming out. “But those two assho—those two jerks you saw me with, Winlock and Barnes, they’ve been driving away any chance I have at finding work. They’ve been hounding me for months, and once people learn I used to run with the Gunners, they don’t want to come near me.”

            “Sounds pretty rough.” Was that actual concern in her voice? “So what do you need my help with? I thought they ran off.”

            “I needed the caps because I figured if I could pull together enough money, I could buy them out.” He dragged his hand down his face. “But I don’t think that would work. They’ve always got a small army of gunners on them, and there’s no guarantee that they won’t just shoot me and take the money.”

            She was still watching him when he dared to look at her. “Where do they operate out of?”

            “Mass Pike Interchange,” he saw where her thoughts were going. “We could go pay them a visit and end this before they know what’s happening.”

            “If you need my help, I’m there.” She was serious, too. He saw it in the set of her brow and the press of her lips.

It halfway scared him. “I’m sorry, I normally don’t trust people with these things. I guess I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t trust you.”

“I know,” her face softened into a smile. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I’m starting to get the funny feeling that you actually care about me,” he sat up a little straighter.

“Of course I do,” she laid back down, though she continued to watch him. “We’re friends.” She yawned. “We’ll leave in the morning. And then I have to get back to the Castle.”

He didn’t know what to say. It was cathartic to get all of that off of his chest. And Nora completely welcomed it. She was going to help him, even if it meant risking her life and taking his problems on top of her own. He was giddy with relief. It was enough to keep the sadness away, even if just for a night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: mcdonald's totally could have existed in the fallout universe! it was started in the 40s


	3. Chapter 3

MacCready woke up when Nora clapped his hat onto his head.

“What?” he jerked upright, nearly fell out of the chair, and pushed the brim out of his face. “I’m awake.” Sunlight streamed in through the window, bathing the small room in white.

She was in the middle of strapping her armor on. “I thought you would be a lot more excited to get to the interchange,” her smile was crooked. The sadness from last night was gone.

“Listen, a warm place to sleep trumps a long trip in my book.” He stretched and reached for his scarf.

“Even if it’s in a ratty old chair?” She knelt down to tighten the straps around her legs.

“Is there some difference between sleeping in a chair or in a bed?” he pulled his duster on. “Because if there is, I haven’t noticed it.”

Nora rolled her eyes. “I know for a fact that it isn’t a Commonwealth thing to just sleep wherever. That’s a MacCready thing.” He resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her and stuffed his feet into his boots instead. “We’re going west, right?” She snapped her pip-boy onto her wrist and activated it.

“Yeah, north of the Glowing Sea,” he stood up to peer at her wrist. “I always find it because it’s a lot of roads all in one place.” He tapped the spot on the screen. “That’s it.”

            “That interchange was a beast to get through at five o’clock,” Nora dropped her wrist. “Back when there was any actual traffic on it.”

            “Now it’s a beast to get up onto,” he finally hoisted his bag onto his back and picked up his rifle. “I’m not sure how many men they’ll have with them,” he looked her in the eyes, trying to fight down the urge to look away and the way his stomach flipped. “If you don’t want to try this, I won’t hold it against you. They’ll have full defenses set up and at least one Assaultron.”

            “I know,” Nora slung her bag onto her shoulders. “We’re going to get them, don’t worry.” She was just as serious as he was. She patted his arm and brushed past him to get out the door. “Come on, we’ve got places to be.”

            He followed after her, through Goodneighbor and through the worst of Boston without fear. It didn’t take too long to reach Diamond City. Nora waved at the guards as they passed through.

            “Why do you wave at these mungos?” he threw a dirty look over his shoulder. The guard flipped him off.

            “It’s always good to make a good impression on people, especially if they’re protecting you,” she shrugged. “They’re more likely to do their job that way.” Nora smiled at another guard as they passed through one of the gates.

            MacCready grunted and kept his gaze low as they walked up the hill and towards the city limits. He kicked at a rock as they went, occasionally chasing it across the street when it rolled the wrong way.

            “By the way,” Nora looked at him. “What’s a mungo?”

            A smile crossed his face. “It’s an insult I used as a kid,” the smile grew, “It was about the least vulgar insult I knew.”

            “Oh,” she nodded, though she sounded like she wanted to know more.

            “It’s what we called adults. I grew up in a community of kids, if that helps. Once you turned 16, you packed up and left. I was actually mayor for a few years,” he laughed. “Can you imagine that? Me being the mayor of anything?”

            Nora laughed with him, her face lighting up. “You were the mayor? Where were the actual adults?”

            “We didn’t have any adults,” her face changed to something like surprise and something like horror. “Everyone pulled their own weight, so it didn’t really matter. We did just as well as any other settlement, anyways. I was proud of that.”

            She nodded, a smile coming back to the corners of her mouth. “Mungo,” she snickered at the word. “Why’d they choose you? There had to be some reason for it.”

            MacCready shrugged. “I stood up to this girl who was chosen to be mayor and tried to change the title to Princess. Told her she was stupid—which she was—and I punched her.” He couldn’t help but be proud. It puffed air into his chest and put a little more kick into his step. “It’s about the best thing I ever did.”

            “Seems like you haven’t changed a bit,” Nora nudged him with her shoulder, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

            “Maybe,” they fell into a comfortable silence, surrounded by nothing but the breeze blowing through the trees and the occasional howl in the distance. It was a beautiful day. MacCready could see for miles in the clear air and the sun warming their backs was enough to keep the chill at bay.

            “Oh, here we go,” Nora sped up a little when a pack Brahmin appeared down the road.

            “Hey!” The man walking with the Brahmin waved, hurrying forward as well. “You’re Nora,” he smiled at her when they met. “Name’s Steven. You saved my settlement.” He was tall and reedy, his brown hair sticking out from underneath a beaten blue cap.

            “Glad to see that you’re doing well,” Nora patted one of the Brahmin’s heads. “Where are you headed?”

            “To the Castle,” he nodded towards the city. “Still got a ways to go, but I’m hoping to be there by tomorrow.”

            “In that case, could I ask a favor of you? We have some supplies I scavenged, but we don’t need them until we get back to the Castle. Could you take them back for us?” She gave the man a bright smile.

            “Of course,” he hurried to open a bag on the mountain of supplies strapped to the Brahmin’s back. “Just put it all in here and I’ll make sure it gets there.”

            “Thank you so much,” Nora’s smile brightened even more as she slung her bag to the ground and started fishing out all of her junk. MacCready followed suit as fast as he could; it was going to be a literal weight off of his shoulders.

            The provisioner was soon on his way, leaving them to continue down the street. Nora checked her pip-boy and glanced at the road ahead of them. “We should get there by nightfall,” she tapped the screen as his stomach fell. He had no desire to try to take down Winlock and Barnes by night. “Which should help our case if we have any hopes of sneaking up on them.”

            “As much as I hate working at night, you have a point,” he pushed his hat back to get a better look at the sky. “As long as it isn’t raining, I guess we’ll be fine.”

            “Yeah, yeah, since rain makes you oh-so miserable,” Nora clicked through a couple other things and suddenly music started to play from the pip-boy.

            “What is that?” MacCready grabbed at her hand. “Is this the radio?”

            “It is,” she let him hold her wrist, even if it was at a strange angle. “I don’t know what all it does yet, but there’s definitely a lot to it. It plays holotapes and everything else, too.”

            “Holy crap,” he released her hand. “I need to get me one of those.” Where had he seen one of them before?

            “I’ve only ever seen them on vault dwellers,” she shook her hand out and let it drop back to her side. “I thought you didn’t care much for terminals and technology.”

            “I do now,” they both snickered.

            As easy as it was to laugh with her, anxiety and tension were settling in his stomach like a bunch of rocks. The sun slowly worked its way across the sky, bringing with it a blanket of dread like the night sky.

            It was too much to ask of her. He took a breath to ask her to turn back, but lost it when the interchange came into view. He wanted it. He was terrified to take on a small army of gunners with two people, but he wanted so badly to get up there and rid himself of Winlock and Barnes.

            “Whatever you’re over there worrying about, stop it,” she pulled her folded-up laser rifle out of her pack and snapped the stock open. “We’ve dealt with worse. Two mercenaries and a few gunners can’t be worse than a Mirelurk queen and all eight hundred of her babies.”

            “You’d be crazy not to be at least a little worried right now,” he flicked the safety off of his rifle and followed her up a hill. “Our only way up there is with one of those construction elevators, and the only one I know of will dump us right in their laps.”

            “When did I say I wasn’t worried?” she glanced over her shoulder. “We’ll find another way up there, even if we have to go down there.” She pointed to their right where the highway split into three roads, one of which met the ground.

            They crept towards the interchange, taking careful routes around the legs of the highway and ducking behind ruined cars to avoid being seen. Sneaking around wasn’t his favorite approach, but it kept them out of a lot of trouble.

            “Do you want to take them out?” Nora whispered as they watched a small shack of gunners. They were crouched at the top of a small hill, looking down to where the camp dropped off into a valley. “I’m not sure that they’ll figure out what’s going on down here once we’re on the highway.”

            “Leave them,” he shook his head. “They’ll take off once they hear gunshots.”

            She nodded and started for the other end of the highway. How was she so quiet? He could barely walk without scuffing his feet or bumping into something. He kept a close eye on the small camp of gunners. If one of them looked close enough, they were caught. It made him antsy.

            “Come on,” she picked up the pace. “They won’t notice us now.”

            “You mean they won’t notice you,” he grumbled. Still, he followed after her until they were nearly to the point where the highway curved to the ground.

            “Oh, perfect,” she pointed at a pair of cables hanging down from the highway above them. Nora stood up straight and walked closer. MacCready didn’t quite straighten up. “There’s another elevator.” They stopped at the top of a small hill. The elevator sat at the bottom of a steep section, tucked against the rocks and loose dirt. Best part was, it was completely deserted.

            The rocks in his stomach felt heavier and heavier as they stepped onto the elevator. “You know, we can turn back if you don’t want to risk your life,” he caught her hand before she could press the elevator button and tried to ignore how warm she was. “Be—because this won’t be easy.”

            Nora didn’t pull her hand away. “I know it won’t be easy. If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t be here.” She smiled, “You’re more worked up over this than I am, Mac. Just relax. You’re forgetting how good of a shot you are.”

            He had no idea what to say to that. MacCready shut his mouth with a snap and nodded.

She pulled her hand free and slapped the red button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise my horrible characterization gets better!! i had to find my groove and i never could find it with this chapter :/


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one! I've kind of gotten way ahead of myself in writing and had to come back and make sure this chapter worked with where the story's going!

The elevator jolted to a stop on a sketchy wooden platform. They both stepped off and looked in the direction of the base. The highway was lit up farther down, both by fires and by lights strung from the top of the overpass.

            “Looks cozy enough,” Nora started towards the base, eventually crouching down and sticking close to the center median.

They continued to scoot closer until they heard the familiar buzz of a turret motor. Nora flopped on her stomach in the middle of the road and propped herself up on her elbows. It was too dark to see well anymore, and the glaring light from the base prevented them from seeing anything else.

            MacCready took a knee and peered through his scope. His cheek was pressed to the smooth wood of the stock and his hands wrapped around cold steel. He lined up the turret in his sights and took a stilling breath. His rifle was solid in his hands like the asphalt beneath him. The familiar steel and weight of the gun was relaxing. He could do this.

            The bullet cracked through the air, rattling his shoulder with recoil. The turret burst into flames as Nora took her own shot. Someone screamed and a silhouette fell in front of the fire.

            “Nice shot,” they both said in unison. MacCready glanced at her over the stock of his gun. She was smiling up at him, her eyes visible for once with her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head. He couldn’t help but smile back.

            He looked back through his scope and saw a gunner drop to her knees next to the poor schmuck who got shot. He pulled the bolt on his rifle and fired before the shell could hit the ground. The woman looked shocked as she fell on top of her comrade.

            He didn’t look away as Nora slid to the edge of the highway. The rest of the gunners would get the hint soon enough. He pulled the bolt again and felt the quick flash of heat as the spent casing bounced off of his hand and to the asphalt.

            The trigger felt warm against his finger. He tightened his grip just a little and waited for the next gunner.

            Except the next gunner wasn’t human. “Assaultron,” he hissed at Nora when that horrible Cyclops head appeared. She didn’t seem to hear him. “Nora,” he couldn’t look away from the machine, not now. “Nora, you’d better pay attention right now,” he lined up the assaultron’s leg in his sights. It hadn’t spotted them yet, but it was bounding closer and closer. Too close for comfort.

            The robot’s head snapped towards his muzzle flash. “Contact—acquired—“ its voice jerked as it fell to the ground. Its eye began to glow. MacCready pulled the bolt faster than he ever had and ignored the pain when the casing got caught against his neck. He fired again, hitting it directly in the face. The machine faltered, but the glow continued to grow brighter.

            He shoved himself to his feet and rushed at it. He only had a few seconds before the laser went off. The butt of his rifle clanked against the back of its head and something like a yell left his throat when it grabbed his ankle. He snapped its hand off with another bash of his rifle and swung it again. He hit the right joint in its neck and could have cried with relief when the head popped off and began to roll away.

            “Get away!” Nora waved at him furiously. Oh shi—crap, crap, crap. MacCready threw himself away from the assaultron’s body and hunkered down beside the center divider. He hunched down, waiting for an explosion that never came.

            “What the hell?” he gasped, finally daring to look at the dead assaultron. His voice came out much higher than he liked. It hadn’t exploded.

            Nora opened fire on another gunner, the red bolts finding their target and reducing him to a pile of ashes. MacCready picked up his rifle, pulled the bolt, peeked through the scope, then fired. A head exploded into mist.

            “You good?” she called. They were pressed to opposite sides of the street.

            “I’m fine,” he smacked the cartridge out of his rifle and swapped it for another one. “Just thought I was going to die for a solid thirty seconds,” he fell into a rhythm of aim, fire, pull, aim, fire, pull. It wasn’t long before the overpass was quiet and still. He only lifted his head when Nora stood up.

            “Damn,” she walked towards the fire where the turret had been. “I should have paid you more.”

            He shrugged and followed her into the base. The caps weren’t on his mind. Winlock and Barnes were.

            “Whoever the hell you are, you’d better run far away from here!” Barnes called from inside a bus on their right. He knew it was Barnes by the quaver in his voice. Always the weaker one, always the one with a breaking voice.

            Nora unslung her shotgun from her back and held it out. “You do the honors,” she nodded at him.

            MacCready strapped his rifle over his shoulders and took the shotgun. “Thanks,” he clicked the safety off and started for the bus. He could hear Barnes’ labored breathing inside the vehicle. He was going to eat it.

            He climbed the steps with the shotgun raised to his shoulder. Barnes was huddled in the corner with a pistol in his shaking hands. It clattered to the floor when he realized what was going on.

            “MacCready?” he breathed. MacCready took sick pleasure from the fear on his face.

            “Happy to see me?” he kicked the pistol away.

            Barnes pushed himself to his feet. “Of course. You coming back for work?” He dug in his pockets. “I’ve got a hundred here and three hundred in a shack farther down.”

            “Hell no,” he laughed, “I’m not here for the caps, Barnes.”

He pulled the trigger.

            Nora was nowhere to be found when he left the bus.

            “What the hell?” He heard Winlock’s gruffer voice somewhere ahead. MacCready crept across the median and crouched behind a long shack. He peeked out and saw someone in a suit of power armor. “Barnes, that had better be you!” Winlock shouted.

            He recognized the laser rifle in the person’s hands. Nora had somehow stolen an entire suit of power armor right out from under Winlock and his commander’s nose. She whipped around and punched the commander in the side of the head. The commander crumpled to the ground without protest.

            “Winlock!” MacCready ran out from the side of the shack and took aim with the shotgun. The man in question was standing on a raised platform. “Time’s up! I’m sick and tired of you and Barnes hounding me all day long!”

            “What, so you hired someone to help because you couldn’t even do this yourself?” Winlock burst into laughter. “You’re a messed up little man, you know that? Biting the hand that feeds. God, we never should have paid you. Go ahead and kill me and take all the caps you want, but it won’t mean shit. Your man here did all the work.”

            Anger pulsed through his body and made his temples pound. “You’re wrong,” he lowered the shotgun. “I didn’t hire anyone. And I’m not here for the fu—for the fricking caps!” he wanted to stomp his foot as Winlock snorted. “I’m here because I’m trying to do better, and I’m starting by cutting off my ties with you pieces of trash.”

            “Really? You ran with us and now you’re trying to be one of the good guys? How much are you being paid?”

            That was it. MacCready dug into his pocket and pulled out the bag of caps that Nora had given him. He grabbed her wrist and stuffed the bag into her hand. “Nothing. I’m doing this for free.”

            There was a hiss as Nora released the power armor. Winlock’s face fell slack when she stepped out from behind the suit. “You’re the one who chased down the courser in Greentech.”

            “I am,” she crossed her arms. “You’re the one who follows one merc around and hides in the top of a highway interchange.”

            “He was one of us through and through,” the gunner pointed at his forehead. “He’s even got the tattoo. Blood type O positive.”

            “Blood type my ass,” MacCready didn’t hesitate to shoot the man.

 

            “Sorry about the assaultron earlier,” Nora spoke up. It was the first time either one of them had spoken in a few hours. He guessed they were both thinking over the night. He knew he was. They were sitting on opposite sides of a fire he had built. “I was watching the gunners on the ground. They were coming up here and I got distracted.”

            “Don’t worry about it,” MacCready hugged one knee to his chest and poked the fire with a piece of rebar. “We’re both still alive.”

            She got up and walked over to his side of the fire, plopping down beside him and holding out a chunk of grilled radstag meat. “I should have been watching, though. We both knew that thing was up here.”

            He took the meat from her. “Seriously,” MacCready set the rebar down and looked at her. “No harm done. Well, aside from the burn I got from a hot casing. But I can let that slide.” He took a bite of the juicy meat and swiped at his mouth with one sleeve.

            She craned her head to look at his neck and pulled his scarf down a little. “You should have mentioned it,” she frowned. “It’s all red and blistery.”

            “It’s not that bad,” he covered the burn with his hand and winced at the contact. “And it’s tiny.” He took another bite.

            Nora was having none of it. She got up again and retrieved her medkit, then peeled his hand away and pressed a wet rag to the burn. The cold water immediately soothed his pain. She tore open a bandage with her free hand and her teeth and replaced the rag with it.

            “Remind me to get Curie to look at this when we get back to the Castle,” she used some medical tape to secure the bandage and leaned back to look at her handiwork.

            “I’ve already forgotten,” he caught her smile out of the corner of his eye.

            She sat back down, though she was noticeably closer now. He didn’t know what to do with that information. So he continued to eat.

            They both stared into the fire for a long moment. It was a really strange weight off of his shoulders, both to be free of Winlock and Barnes and to be working for free. He didn’t have to worry about the two gunners coming after him anymore. And he had halfway paid Nora back, he supposed. Not much would make up for what she had done for him, though. He was just surprised that he had given the caps back like that. It was a weightless feeling with just a touch of guilt. He needed to pay her back.

            “Where are you tattooed?” Nora suddenly spoke again. She didn’t look away from the fire.

            MacCready blinked. “What?”

            “The tattoo,” she tapped her temple. “The one that all the gunners have. Winlock said you have one, but you clearly don’t have any face tattoos.”

            “Oh, that,” he reached up to pull his scarf down and leaned forward. “I didn’t get my face done because I wanted to maybe work again if I left. That face tattoo is a one way ticket to lifelong employment with the gunners.” He knew the tattoo sat near the back of his neck. It was easy enough to find for any medics to find, but not a stamp on his forehead.

            Nora gently traced the circle with her thumb. “You know that I don’t care where you come from, right?” The touch sent a thrill down his spine. He sat up and tugged his scarf back up before she could see the blush that spread to his ears and down his neck.

            “I know,” his sigh blew a cloud in the air. “You keep Strong around, for crying out loud.”

            She laughed at that. “Strong is around because he says so. I don’t think anything could keep him out. He’s on a mission, I’ll give him that.”

            “Why don’t you just give him some Brahmin milk and say that’s the milk of human kindness?” He snickered at the thought. “Would he even know the difference?”

            Nora snorted and nudged him with her knee. “That would be mean.”

            “I’m just saying,” he turned to face her and realized just how close they were. MacCready looked at her for a long moment.

She was a different kind of beautiful from Lucy. Lucy had been all dark hair and darker eyes. Her round face was always serene, her full lips quirked in a smile. She was blessed with curves and a soft-spoken personality. Despite their rough life and poor upbringing, she made the most of what they had.

And here was Nora, all blonde hair and shining green eyes. She was completely unique to him and completely like him all the same. There was a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks like stars in the sky and she had high, strong cheekbones. Her face was expressive and open, with every emotion playing across her brow and twisting her lips. She was strong and athletic, with long limbs and a tall build. There wasn’t much extra weight that the Commonwealth could have stolen from her.

He recognized himself in her sadness, too. She was grieving her dead husband and her missing son; he was grieving his dead wife and missing his son like no other.

On top of it all, she wasn’t just making the most of the Commonwealth; she was set on making it _better_.

            MacCready realized he was staring. He cleared his throat and jerked his gaze back to the fire. He hadn’t intended to fall for anyone, and definitely not for Nora. She was the general of the Minutemen and practically the savior of the Commonwealth, damn it. She had no reason to pay him any attention. But he couldn’t help himself. And he couldn’t deny that she at least cared about his wellbeing.

            “You should get some rest,” he glanced at her. Her stare was burning into his cheek. “I’ll take watch.”

            She nodded and checked her pip-boy. “It’ll only be a few hours before the sun’s up,” she rose to her feet when he did. “Then we’ll head back to the Castle.” Nora paused and looked up at him. “Can you get that far without any rest?”

            “Of course,” he cracked his neck and picked up his rifle from where it was leaning against the hood of a car. “I’ve done worse.”

            He felt her gaze on him as he turned away and walked to the edge of the highway. She only looked away when he sat down facing the guardrail, tucking his legs underneath the bars so that his feet dangled in open air and his chin rested on the top bar. The Commonwealth stretched out below him, dark and silent. He could see the yellow glow where Diamond City’s lights were bright enough to illuminate the sky.

            Despite how still it appeared at first glance, the ground below was far from empty. He could hear the occasional bark and snap of a mongrel in the gunner camp below them as they searched for scraps. The dogs soon left to chase down a glowing radstag. The mutated deer bounced across the ground until the dogs caught it and the glow was hidden by vicious bodies.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! It's been a total of forever since I added anything to this, but now that the entire fandom is back from the dead, I thought I would update (and hopefully eventually finish) this one! Sorry for the wait on it, I somewhat lost focus and interest with the lack of interest in the fandom, but now that 76 is on its way, I'm hoping there will be a lot more interest!  
> As always, ignore my stupid formatting and enjoy!

MacCready didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until he was waking up to the sunrise in front of him. It painted the sky pink and orange and threw long shadows across the ground. He crossed his arms on top of the guardrail and rested his chin on his hands.

            It was the kind of sunrise that he and Lucy always enjoyed watching together, and later the kind that he watched with Duncan. Duncan loved bright colors, and the sky was often the only place he could find them. He reached into his duster and clasped the carved soldier in his inside pocket.

            “Cold?” Nora’s voice startled him. She draped a blanket over his shoulders and sat down next to him. Her hair was sleep-tousled and her green eyes almost glowing in the light.

            He hadn’t even noticed. “Not really,” he tugged the blanket tighter around himself anyways. “Thanks,” he looked up at her, then pulled his hat off when the brim got in the way.

            “Is something wrong?” She looked and sounded as though she was struggling too.

            “I should be asking you the same thing,” he turned back to the sunrise. “Just thinking.”

            “Huh,” she kicked her feet idly and looked down at the ground.

            “I take it you’re going to work on the relay once we get back?” He murmured.

            Nora nodded quietly. “I am, unless Sturges has built the whole thing himself. In that case, I’ll be leaving as soon as we get back to the Castle.”

            MacCready grunted. “And then you’re gone.”

            “Not gone forever,” she leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’ll try not to be gone for too long.”

            “The Commonwealth will fall apart if you’re gone for too long,” he felt her smile against his shoulder.

            “It’ll hold up just fine,” she was warm against him. “And if it doesn’t, we’ll just fix it again.”

            He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. “I’ll try not to get too bored while you’re gone.”

            Nora smiled again. “Should I tell Preston to make sure you’re not bored?”

            MacCready laughed, “I’m not going to pull up weeds all day, if that’s what you’re saying.”

            “I know,” her humor faded a little. “Just stay out of trouble. And that includes keeping off of everyone’s nerves.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” the sky was getting brighter and brighter. “But really,” he looked down at the top of her head. “Thanks for all of this. For putting off finding your kid so that you could come kill some losers and for buying me out of the Third Rail.” Her hair was tinted pink by the light. It was so difficult not to be open with her, especially in moments like this. He took the leap. “Because honestly, I’m terrified of being alone. And I’d almost forgotten how good it is to have someone else I can trust.”

            “I know,” she lifted her head to look at him.

            MacCready watched the light play across her cheeks and catch in a few loose strands of hair. Her left eye looked golden with the sunlight shining through it, while her right was still a cool green. There was a fleck of brown in it. He wasn’t bothered by how close she was, for once. “And I’m going to do everything I can to keep it that way.”

            “I know,” she repeated.

            Nora leaned in at the same time he did. Her lips were soft against his and warm like she was. He kept his eyes closed even after she pulled away, relishing in the moment.

            “I promise I’ll find my way back to you,” she breathed.

            “I know,” he opened his eyes to her smile.

            They stayed like that for a while, wrapped up in a blanket and watching the Commonwealth wake up beneath them.

           

Their trip back to the Castle was quiet and uneventful, even as they traveled through part of the night. They talked about everything from Sanctuary to Danse’s obsession with power armor to the future of the Commonwealth.

 

“So,” he leaned back against the elevator railing as they sank to the ground. “Why don’t you ever go back to Sanctuary? It’s your home, right?”

Nora shrugged. “It hurts. And I don’t really like being that close to the vault,” she didn’t flinch away from the question, though. “It was my home before the war, but now it’s just a bunch of ruined houses that I don’t want to see anymore. I’d rather be looking for Shaun or helping others anyways. It’s too easy to lose focus there and just wander the street for days on end.” They stepped off of the elevator.

He knew exactly what she meant. He’d wasted more time than he’d like to admit wandering the farm after Lucy died, to the point that Duncan would notice and ask if ‘Daddy was going on a walk again.’ “I understand. You’ve made it a safe place for others, though. That’s important.”

She laughed, “It’s about the safest place this end of the Commonwealth.”

“Maybe someday you’ll be able to call it home again,” he glanced at her from under the brim of his cap.

Her sunglasses hid her eyes, but he saw the way her lips tightened and her shoulders rose. “Maybe,” her tone was noncommittal.

He chose not to push her. “I guess that’s kind of why I can’t go back to the Capital,” he shrugged. “I get distracted and suddenly I’ve been wandering for hours.”

“What good is a mayor if he’s going to wander all day?” Nora’s voice was lighter.

“I wasn’t mayor the _whole_ time I lived there,” he rolled his eyes. “I had my own life after Little Lamplight. It just didn’t last very long.”

She was looking at him now, even though he couldn’t see her eyes. “What kind of a life?”

“Normal, I guess,” he didn’t know how to describe it. How could he? There wasn’t really an easy way to say that he hid the fact he was a mercenary from his wife and told her he was a soldier instead until she was murdered by ferals and he was left alone with his son. Okay, maybe that was the easiest way to say it. “I had a farm and started a family,” his gaze fell to the rocky ground. “But a pack of ferals ruined that.”

Nora found his hand and linked their fingers. She didn’t say anything, but he knew what she meant. He wasn’t alone.

 

It was easier and easier to be with her, it seemed. It was because he could trust her, and she trusted him.

MacCready had his arm looped around her shoulders when they walked back into the Castle.

            He dropped it when he saw the contraption Sturges had built. “Holy shi—ugh, holy crap.” It was massive. A small platform was shadowed by a tall black tripod. It was all connected to a complicated control panel and a small satellite by a huge mess of wires and tubes. Powering it all was a row of generators. The whole thing took up a good chunk of the Castle’s courtyard.

            “He built it,” Nora was shocked too. “Sturges?” she called. Much of the Castle was sleeping. It didn’t matter. “Sturges? She repeated.

            Sure enough, the handyman in question slowly rose from the other side of the control panel. “What? I’m here?” He looked around the area until he saw them, blinking the sleep away. “You’re back,” his face broke into a smile.

            MacCready barely listened to their exchange as he stared up at the relay. How the hell was this going to work? He walked around it, careful not to trip on any stray wires. The control panel consisted of a bunch of lights and readings that he didn’t really understand. Sturges was messing with Nora’s pip-boy when he looked back at them. She was really going to do it.

            He didn’t know what to think. Was she really going so soon?

            “Mac,” Nora caught him by the arm. “It’s ready. I have to go,” she swallowed.

            “I know,” he wrapped her in a tight hug. “You’re going to find your son,” he pressed his cheek into her hair. He didn’t want her to go, not so soon. But he had to.

            “I’m going to find a lot more than Shaun,” she gave a breathy laugh. “I’ll say hello for you. Then I’m getting the hell out of there.”

            MacCready pulled back, keeping his hands on her arms. “Tell them a lot more than hi from me.”

            Nora nodded and took a stilling breath, then turned towards the contraption.

            She climbed onto the platform and stood still as Sturges told her. MacCready backed away to stand by the control panel. Blue electricity began to crackle from above her. It grew stronger and stronger, even as a tube popped free and sprayed some kind of mist everywhere. And then she was gone with a flash and crack of thunder that made their ears ring.

            They stood in silence for a long moment afterwards, even as the entire thing powered down with a rickety groan.

            “I’ll be damned,” Sturges wiped his hands on his overalls and whistled. “It actually worked.”

            “It did,” MacCready didn’t really know what to do. He could do whatever he wanted, but he wasn’t about to miss it when she came back.

            “What the hell was that?” Preston came running out of the castle, still stuffing his hat on his head and working his musket strap over his shoulders. “Did you actually use that thing?”

            “Sure did,” Sturges drawled. “Nora’s on her way right to the Institute’s door. Now all we gotta do is wait.”

            “Damn,” Preston turned towards the gap in the wall and frowned. “We’ve got company,” he pointed at the Prydwen. A vertibird was already on its way.

            “I don’t think Nora wanted them figuring out where she was going,” Sturges pulled a hammer off of his belt and flipped it in his hand. “She kept Danse a long ways away from here while we were planning it.”  
            Preston cranked his musket twice. “If they try to take it, destroy it. Nora didn’t want them involved.”

            He wasn’t about to deal with the Brotherhood. “I wasn’t a part of this,” MacCready put his hands up and backed towards the barracks. Neither Preston nor Sturges acknowledged what he said. They probably assumed it wasn’t in his job description.

He let himself into the general’s quarters and dumped his pack on the floor. He was bone tired, if he was honest. Even if he had gotten two nights of sleep in a row, they hadn’t been restful. He doubted he would rest easy until Nora came back.

            The quarters were well lit, with a couch and coffee table directly across from the door. Nora’s bed was tucked into the corner on the right, and a bobblehead stand and magazine racks dominated the opposite corner. Her power armor loomed next to the door.

            MacCready shut the door and flopped on the dusty couch and leaned his rifle against the cushion next to him. As much as he told himself it would be okay, he couldn’t stop thinking about Nora. What if Shaun wasn’t there at all? What if he hated her? What if she never even made it to the Institute? He didn’t want to think any further than that. On top of his worries, the Brotherhood was now sticking its nose into their business.

            Still, he wondered where they were headed. It was easier to think about than what could be happening to her. He never expected her to reciprocate any feelings for him; he was her hired gun and she was his buyer. It seemed as if being with her for free had emboldened them both. She wasn’t worried about him taking the money and leaving, and he knew she was keeping him around regardless.

            MacCready flinched when the door was shoved open. Danse towered in the doorway. “You,” he stepped inside, his power armor far too loud in the echoing room. “Tell me what happened.”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he kicked his feet up on the coffee table and glared at the soldier from under the brim of his cap. “I thought Nora left your metal ass on the Prydwen.” He wasn’t about to help the Brotherhood of Steel, especially not its most annoying paladin. He had never been on the same terms as the organization, whether in the Capital Wasteland or in the Commonwealth, and he didn’t appreciate Danse’s harassment.

            “Tell me what happened about thirty minutes ago. You were involved.” Danse ignored him and took a step closer.

            The mercenary shrugged. “I was trying to relax in here. Heard a boom, then you show up twenty minutes later.”

            “Something tells me I shouldn’t trust you,” the paladin crossed his arms. “What’s the device for? And where is Nora?”

            “Nora’s out doing her own thing. She didn’t tell me what she was doing,” he braced himself as the paladin came even closer. “And the funky black thing? I have no idea. We were gone a few days and it was just here when we got back. If you ask me, I’m blaming aliens. I’m sure you bucket heads saw that weird crash the other week.”

            “You’re coming with me,” Danse kicked the table out of the way and lifted him by the shoulders.

            “I’m not going anywhere!” MacCready wrenched himself free and grabbed for his rifle. He used his smaller size and extra speed to avoid another swipe from the paladin and whipped around with the rifle in hand, backing towards the door. “You can go fuck yourself.” He didn’t correct his language. The Brotherhood deserved every ounce of hate he had in him.

            “Drop the weapon,” Danse didn’t follow him this time, despite the angry look on his face. MacCready toed the door open and only straightened up when he was in the hallway. He turned and found himself face-to-face with a man with dark hair, a heavy brown coat, and a Gatling laser in hand.

            “What is going on here?” He spoke with the arrogant authority that he had grown to expect out of Brotherhood officers. Not that he dealt with them much, but he knew how it went. He stepped away from the door when the paladin approached.

            “Ad Victoriam, Elder Maxson,” Danse’s voice was reverent. “This mercenary was with Nora up until her disappearance and the explosion. He’s unlikely to talk without some encouragement.”

            The Elder’s brow furrowed and his mouth tightened. “What’s your name, civilian?”

            “Robert Joseph MacCready,” Danse spoke up before he could. “He came to the Commonwealth from the Capital Wasteland and ran with the Gunners for a period of time.”

            “The name sounds familiar. What happened here?” Maxson handed the paladin his weapon and crossed his arms.

            “Listen, I already told your tin man: I don’t know. Nora and I got back here and that thing was just sitting out there. I came in here to get some peace and quiet and I thought the explosion was you ass— _racists_ blowing something up.” He lowered his rifle and threw a hand in the direction of the courtyard. He knew he was raising his voice, but he didn’t quite care. “And no, I don’t know where Nora’s gone. And if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.” Technically there was some truth to every point of his argument.

            Danse took a step toward him. MacCready jerked his rifle up again. “I’ll shoot you before you touch me,” he flicked the safety off.

            “Stand down, Paladin,” Maxson called him back. “There’s nothing to get out of this.”

            “I’m no friend of the Brotherhood,” he spat.

            “Now I remember,” Maxson glanced down the hallway. “You were in charge of that bunch of kids. Little Lamplight, was it? Best known sharpshooter in the Capital Wasteland. Always looking for a fight.” The Elder pulled at the lapels of his jacket, tightening it across his broad shoulders. “And you started a family once you outgrew that bunch of kids. That didn’t work out so well, did it?”

            MacCready’s stomach dropped.

            “Good evening, Mayor MacCready. Paladin Danse, I expect you to keep a close eye on this one.” The Elder turned away and walked back out into the courtyard.

            The mercenary shouldered past Danse and locked the door to the general’s quarters behind him. He threw his rifle to the floor and slung his hat off too. “God damn it!” he shouted through gritted teeth. He kicked the coffee table, sending it skidding further across the room and cracking one of the legs in half, then whipped around and punched the wall. He staggered and tripped and fell on his butt when his whole hand and forearm ignited in pain.

            “Shit—god, Duncan, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. He cradled his hand against his chest. It had to be broken.

            His teeth hurt from clenching his jaw and his temples pounded. MacCready knew he couldn’t turn to anyone for help, and Nora was gone indefinitely. Hell, he couldn’t even tell her about this. He slowly rose from the floor and sat down heavily on the couch, putting his head in one hand. He’d never felt so alone.

            He pretended as though he couldn’t hear the clunking of Danse’s power armor outside the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for any ooc moments, I feel like all of my writing is ooc for basically everyone! Either way, keep an eye out for more chapters on their way! Feedback and support are always appreciated and make my day much better!


	6. Chapter 6

MacCready didn’t sleep that night. Or the next night. Heck, he barely slept for the better part of a week. Instead he spent his time wandering the Castle and the tunnels beneath it. There was nothing better for him to do; he wasn’t about to start pulling weeds or being buddy-buddy with any of the others. They didn’t like him anyways. Nobody trusted a mercenary.

 

The only person who would freely talk to him was Curie, and that was only when she was splinting and wrapping his arm the next morning.

“Monsieur MacCready,” she looked up from her book when he walked in. “Is something the matter? Are you injured?”

“I—yeah, let’s go with that,” he shrugged. “I think it’s broken,” he held out his arm.

“Broken? Sit, sit,” she stood up and gestured to a chair in the middle of the room. It sat next to a table covered in medical supplies. “Can you move it?”

“I don’t think so,” he gingerly laid his hand on the table. Truthfully, it hurt like hell. His knuckles were split and bloody and his last two knuckles hurt worse than the rest. On top of that, he could barely use his wrist.

“What was your mechanism of injury?” Curie asked as she washed her hands.

“The mechanism of what?”

“How did you hurt yourself?” She dried her hands and walked to the table.

He glanced at Danse, who was hovering in the doorway and pretending not to listen. “You know, I just woke up and it was like this.”

Curie’s eyes followed his and she frowned. “Monsieur Danse, would you bring me something to eat? I am quite hungry.”

The paladin hesitated for a moment. “Of course,” he finally turned and walked away.

“Well?” She picked up a clean rag and wet it in a bowl of water.

“I punched a wall,” he mumbled.

“That was not smart, monsieur,” her tone was a gentle scold. She dabbed at the blood on his knuckles and then gently felt around his hand. “Your hand is quite swollen, and so is your wrist. Are you sure that you cannot move them?”

MacCready tried to close his fingers, but only two of them would work. “You know, I don’t think they do.” He could barely do anything with his wrist.

Curie frowned as she pressed around his knuckles. “Yes, it does seem that you have injured these knuckles worse than the others,” she moved to his wrist. “And your wrist is equally swollen. I will wrap them and splint your wrist,” she decided.

Danse reappeared in the doorway with a bowl in his hand, which he quietly set on the table. If a man in a suit of power armor could be quiet, that is. MacCready scowled at him as Curie wrapped surgical tape around his ring and pinky fingers and then taped a piece of wood to each side of his wrist.

“You should be healed in six to eight weeks,” Curie nodded to herself as she wrapped clean cloth around the whole thing. “Until then, do not do anything to strain or reinjure it,” she patted his shoulder. “If you are in any pain, please come see me for assistance.”

“Thanks, Curie,” he clasped her hand in his good one and then turned back towards the door.

Danse followed him down the hallway and out into the courtyard. “I know how you hurt it. You don’t have to lie or wait until I’m out of the room to discuss punching the wall.”

“Just announce it to the whole Commonwealth, why don’t you?” MacCready scowled in the paladin’s general direction.

Danse didn’t bring it up again, even though the mercenary caught his eyes on the bandages more than once.

 

            As time went on, he grew more and more worried about Nora. She was completely gone. As far as any of them knew, she had dropped off the map. MacCready wondered if the Institute had stolen her. She could show up as a synth and they’d never know it.

            Heck, she could have been a synth all along and had them all fooled. It would explain a lot, in retrospective. Nora was unnaturally good at just about everything, and she adjusted to the wasteland life as though she was born in it. But she couldn’t be. He wouldn’t think about it. She was human through and through; his sleepless thoughts couldn’t change that.

            “Where are you going?” Danse followed him out of the southern gate and down the narrow path away from the Castle.

            “Where are you going?” MacCready’s feet dragged. One of his boots had given up entirely and dropped a sole. He needed to rest, but it wasn’t going to happen with Danse breathing down his neck.

            The paladin rolled his eyes. “I’ve been assigned to keep an eye on you. I dislike this just as much as you do.”

            “Look, mungo,” the mercenary stopped and turned around to face him, pretending as though he didn’t nearly lose his balance. “I just need some time to clear my frickin’ head. I don’t care about your assignment or whatever the heck Maxson told you to do. If you think I’m going to run off before Nora gets back, you’re wrong. Now get off my back.”

            Danse frowned at him, unfazed. “I’m not going to disobey orders. Does clearing your head involve shooting at anything that moves?”

            “Something like that,” he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

            “I’m coming with you,” some of the military tone was gone from his voice. MacCready didn’t expect him to want to actually do something that wasn’t an official assignment. Maybe the tin man was a little more human than he let on. “I could use a little bit of mindless shooting myself.”

            MacCready stuck his chin out and stared up at the larger man. “What the heck,” he finally shook his head. “University Point usually has plenty of synths to break.”

            “Lead the way,” Danse gestured at the road.

            They found their way to University Point by memory. MacCready found himself relying on the paladin to watch for danger; his eyes were slow and tired and all-around not great for staying away from danger. Not that there was much the two of them couldn’t handle. Their walk ended on top of the overpass near University Point. It offered a perfect view into the former settlement.

            He lay down and stuck the barrel of his rifle out of the corner between a support bar and a guardrail. Danse even stepped out of his power armor and lay down next to him.

            “I was beginning to think you were fused to that giant piece of junk,” MacCready adjusted the focus on his scope and pressed his cheek to the stock.

            “I’m not going to respond to that,” the paladin snapped a scope onto his laser rifle.

            “You just did,” the mercenary lined up a Gen 2’s head in his sights and pulled the trigger. Its head exploded into shiny pieces. The other synths immediately perked up and began looking around.

            They shot in silence for a while. MacCready lost himself in the mindless action, barely noticing when Danse fired and often missed. He only came out of the haze when a courser suddenly appeared in the middle of the courtyard.

            He pulled back from the scope and rubbed at his eyes. The courser had just appeared out of nowhere in a flash of blue light. He peered back through the scope and made sure that he wasn’t seeing things.

            “What just happened?” Danse hissed. “Was it struck by lightning?”

            “He teleported,” MacCready glanced at the paladin. “That’s how Sturges thinks they get around.”

            “Elder Maxson will be pleased with this information.”

            “Yeah, yeah. He’ll be pleased with all loss of freedom and diversity in the Commonwealth, too.” He put his head down and took aim. The courser was bent over and facing away from them, his head barely visible over his shoulders.

            “You’re taking that shot?” Danse was watching through his own scope. “You can barely see him. And no, Elder would not be pleased with all loss of freedom. He only wants the best for the Commonwealth, and that’s the eradication of the scum that it’s filled with. That includes synths like these.”

            “You just watched me shoot shi—shoot crap for an hour with perfect accuracy, and now you’re doubting me?” he muttered. He took a breath, held it, found the space between heartbeats, and pulled the trigger. He only exhaled when the courser collapsed to the ground with a fresh hole in his head.

            “You’re one hell of a shot,” Danse looked at him with something like respect in his eyes.

            He pulled the bolt on his rifle and sat up. His body was sore. “Will you leave me alone now?”

            The paladin didn’t respond until he was back in his armor. “I’ll be gone for a while to debrief with Elder Maxson,” he replied. It wasn’t outright, but he got the point. He was going to be free of his power-armored shadow for a while.

            MacCready could cry with relief. He immediately shut himself in the general’s quarters when they returned to the Castle and Danse continued to the Prydwen. He’d never worked his way out of his outerwear and weapons so fast. He pressed his face into what was probably the softest pillow in the Commonwealth and knew nothing more.

            Danse was back when he woke up. How long had the he been asleep? And how had he not woken up when the paladin came banging into the room?

            “I was beginning to wonder if you were dead,” Danse looked at him from where he was cleaning his laser rifle. His power armor was nowhere to be seen. “Do you always carry that much on you?” he gestured at what MacCready realized was probably a fairly sizeable pile of clothes and weapons on the floor.

            “I was,” MacCready rubbed at his eyes and forced himself out of bed. It had been his best sleep in several weeks. “And yes, I do carry this much on me. It can’t hurt to be prepared.” He started pulling everything back on, tucking knives and various weapons into each pocket and sleeve he put on. “Any changes?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to dislike Danse like he used to. Not that they were on exactly friendly terms, and not that he would ever tell the paladin as much.

            “Still no Nora,” he frowned, “Though some have reported seeing her around the Commonwealth with a man in black. Would you know anything about that?”

            “Only people I know of that wear black are coursers or Deacon when he’s feeling particularly lucky,” he started working his way back into his layers of clothing, groaning whenever a seam popped or a string got caught on one of his fingers or toes. “I don’t know why she would be with a courser, though. Only man I ever heard of who regularly ran with a courser was Kellogg.”

            “That device out in the courtyard,” Danse sounded as if he was carefully choosing his words for once. “It was so that Nora could get into the Institute, wasn’t it?”

            “No idea,” MacCready hid his face under the brim of his hat. “I just know she’s looking for her kid.”

            “And her son is being held in the Institute.”

            “And?” He pulled his boots on and tried to ignore it when his toes kicked through the end of one.

            “And the only way to get into the Institute is teleportation.” The paladin raised an eyebrow at his feet. “I can get you some Brotherhood boots, you know.”

            “I’m not wearing Brotherhood anything.” The mercenary pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. “I don’t see what you’re saying, mungo.”

            “If mungo is some kind of euphemism for humongous, I take that as a compliment,” Danse snapped his rifle back together. “I’m saying that the device out there is a teleporter that Nora used to get into the Institute, and I know this because we just watched a courser teleport yesterday.”

            He lit the cigarette and took a drag. “If you tell Maxson, I’m shooting you myself.”

            “Elder Maxson will find out eventually,” the paladin stood up. He was at least a head taller than MacCready was, even out of his power armor. “Whether I tell him or not is undecided.”

            “You’re a real ass—a real turd, you know that?” he started for the door and almost ran into the power armor waiting outside.

            “Elder Maxson does, however, know of your ability with a rifle,” Danse followed him and released the lock on the armor and stepped inside.

            “Maxson already knew I was a good shot,” he grumbled. “What, so now you’re going to dog me about joining the Brotherhood?”

            “Me? No,” the paladin laughed. “If it were up to me, you would never have a chance at recruitment.”

            They both stopped cold in the hallway when light flashed and a loud crack met their ears. MacCready broke into a run and burst into the courtyard, dropping his cigarette as he went.

            Nora was walking toward him from the center of the courtyard. A courser followed close behind her, his eyes hidden by black sunglasses. The synth wasn’t quite as big as Danse, though he had no doubt that the courser would whoop the paladin in a heartbeat.

            “You’re back,” he stopped in front of her. He suddenly didn’t know what to do.

            “I promised I would be,” a smile broke across her face and she pulled him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

            MacCready sighed. Her hair smelled nice, for once. The Institute must have forced her to clean up. “That’s okay.”

            She drew back and looked him over. “Still in that ratty duster. What did you do to your wrist?” Nora grabbed his hand and held it up.

            “Oh, that,” he blinked. “You know what? I’ll tell you about that later.”

            She shook her head and hugged him again. “I’m sure you have a good reason for it.”

            They eventually parted and Nora continued on into the general’s quarters. MacCready cast a look over his shoulder when the courser followed.

            “Don’t mind X6-88,” Nora spoke as she dropped her pack on the floor. He noticed for the first time that she had traded some of her armor for polished, fresh synth pieces. “He’s with me for the time being.”

            “Oh, okay,” he glanced at the doorway. Danse was there too, with a look nothing short of hate on his face. “So what happened?”

            “I was frozen for a lot longer than I thought,” Nora sat down on the couch with a sigh and pulled her sunglasses off. “Shaun was taken nearly sixty years before I woke up, not ten. The boy I saw was a synth recreation of Shaun.” She picked at her cuticles, a habit he hadn’t noticed before. Her fingernails had always been perfect, now that he thought about it. “And now Shaun is the director of the Institute.”

            MacCready’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding,” he sat down next to her. “Your kid is the one who started half of this mess?”

            “He didn’t start it,” Nora sighed. “He’s just in control of it. Besides—the Institute isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be. They only want to help, even if that help has been misguided in the past.” Her voice softened with her last sentence.

            “Misguided?” Danse blurted as he stepped into the room. “You are a member of the Brotherhood of Steel and you’re defending the Institute? I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but the Institute has killed and replaced countless innocent individuals, as well as promoted the creation of Super Mutants and done nothing to help the people of the Commonwealth!” he gestured wildly as he spoke. “How can you defend those monsters? They’re using the Commonwealth as one giant science experiment.”

            MacCready grimaced when X6-88 turned on the paladin. He didn’t necessarily like the paladin, but he didn’t want him dead, either. “It seems that you are forgetting what the Brotherhood of Steel is doing. You are partaking in the murder of any creature that is not human, and even those who are.”

            “A synth isn’t a human,” Danse took a thundering step closer. “You’re lucky I don’t destroy you right here.”

            “I’d like to see you try,” X6-88’s flat voice was almost smug.

            “Okay, calm down,” Nora stood up and walked to the middle of the room. “We’ve all made our mistakes and we all have our issues,” she put her hands up defensively. “But please, don’t hold this against each other. We’re all working to make the Commonwealth better, aren’t we?”

            “It seems that we have different ideas of better,” Danse growled. He turned and tromped off.

            Nora didn’t relax until she could no longer hear his footsteps. When she did, her shoulders sagged and her eyes slid shut. “X6, go make yourself useful.”

            “Ma’am, I would be more useful remaining here,” the courser protested.

            “Go be useful outside,” she waved a hand at the door. X6 stared at her for a long moment, then nodded and walked out. Nora shut the door behind him.

            “Is something wrong?” MacCready eased an arm around her shoulders when she sat down and tucked herself into his side. It was a little awkward, a little bony, a little new, but everything he could have wanted or needed in that moment. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re okay.”

            “Yeah, there is something wrong. You smell,” she made a face at him. “And there’s also a very good chance that the whole Commonwealth could go up in flames.”

            “Both of those are pretty constant issues,” he gave a little smile. “Why is this bothering you now?”

            “Because the Institute is so much more than I thought it was,” she didn’t return the smile. “And no matter what side I choose, innocent people are going to die.” Nora stared down at her hands. “I want to side with Shaun, but I don’t want to disappoint Danse and Deacon and Preston and practically the entire Commonwealth.”

            “I’m on your side, no matter who you choose,” he played with her hair where it rested on her shoulder. “Even if it means I have to tolerate the Brotherhood.”

            “Yeah,” she didn’t seem satisfied. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve learned the truth about my son’s fate, but now what?”

            “Now you can focus on the Commonwealth or whatever you choose,” he looked around the room. “You can spend time with your son and get to know him.”

            Nora paused for a long moment, thinking through something. Then she turned those green eyes on him. “Before I left—when we were walking back from the interchange—what did you tell me? You said you had a farm and a family.”

            “I’d rather not take a trip back to the Capital,” he found himself drawing away from her. He didn’t want her to drop everything to go back to the Capital and learn that he was a widower and a failure as a father. He didn’t want her to see Little Lamplight or the children who would tell him Duncan’s fate.

            “We could go find your family,” she insisted, taking his hands. “Get some time away from all of this conflict and maybe let it sort itself out,” she leaned closer to force him to look at her. “Don’t you want to see your family again? Your farm?”

            MacCready opened and shut his mouth as uncertainty seized his chest and made his heart pound. Sure, he was going to tell her what kind of a disappointment he was, but he wanted to do it on his terms. Not when she’d just returned from finding her kid and was about to return to her duties as General and Knight and Agent and Director’s Mother.

            “The farm’s gone,” he finally replied. “It’s all gone. We—my family—we were camping in a subway tunnel one night and I didn’t check the area like I should have. A pack of feral ghouls came in the middle of the night.” The pain and grief burned in his stomach, made the scars on his ankles itch. The ghouls had raked at his feet and tried to pull him back to them.

            Nora squeezed his hands. “You had something left, didn’t you? You had to.”

            “I don’t want to talk about it,” he drew back and stood, picking up his rifle from where it leaned against the wall. “Not right now. I’ll take Danse somewhere to keep him from pissing the courser off.”

            “Robert,” she stood when he was nearly out the door. Hearing his first name forced him to stop.

            His hand came to rest on the door handle. “Yeah?”

            “You promised to stay by my side. I hope you know what that could mean.”

            MacCready dropped his hand. “What do you mean? I know what I promised.”

            “You might not like the outcome,” she averted her gaze. He didn’t like the implication there, but he wasn’t going to push it.

            He shook his head and swiftly pulled the door open and left. He nearly ran into Deacon when he looked away from the general’s quarters.

            “Hey, Bobbert, how’s it going? It’s been a while since we last talked.” The agent fell into step beside him. “You sleeping alright?”

            The mercenary glanced at him from under the brim of his hat. “My name’s not Bobbert. What do you want, Deacon?” He was the last person he wanted to talk to. Even Danse was preferable to this. If he could just find the paladin, maybe he could scare the agent off.

            “Just to chat,” Deacon shrugged. “Nothing in particular. I’m not curious about whatever you and Nora were just being all secretive about or anything.” They walked out into the gray sunshine. For once, Danse wasn’t waiting to follow his every move. X6-88 was hovering in the shadows and scaring the settlers.

            “I don’t think you care much to hear about my life in the Capital or Nora’s feelings about the future of the Commonwealth,” he cleared his throat. “If you want information, go to her.”

            “You know I don’t like to do that,” Deacon pouted. “Why let the mother of the director of the Institute know that the Railroad’s curious what she’s up to?”

            “Look, I don’t know either. How do you already know that?” MacCready tightened his grip on his rifle. “Now leave me alone.” He didn’t wait for the agent when they reached one of the holes punched in the wall. His feet sent rocks skittering down the rubble embankment.

            “The Railroad has its ways of finding information. I’m sure we’ve known longer than you have. You’ve been hanging out with the tin can too much,” Deacon taunted him from the bottom of the slope. “You put a stick up your butt, too? Or did he do that for you?”

            “Go to hell,” the mercenary snapped at him and turned away. He had a total of no desire to have anything to do with Deacon. He didn’t like the company of pathological liars.

            He saw Danse’s large form walking away from the Castle and into the edge of the city. He was probably returning to the Prydwen to inform Maxson of Nora’s return. There went his options.

            Instead he wandered the Castle until night fell, draining the color from everything around. Once it was dark, he tried the door to the general’s quarters. It was firmly locked, and X6-88 was nowhere to be found. Was the courser really that clingy? Was he really that clingy?

            He considered sleeping in the common room, but decided against it. He had never slept well with others around.

            MacCready slept in a little perch that Nora had built for him weeks before, listening only to the rush of the tide and the faint calls of monsters in the dark. The perch was a covered shack that held onto the outside wall of the Castle, supported above the eastern banks and looking out over nothing but the waves. It was cold, but it was also solitary and peaceful. He wrapped himself in blankets and slept about as peacefully as he could; Nora was back safe and whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's a little late editing and posting this so i hope i didn't miss anything!! enjoy!!


	7. Chapter 7

Nora hardly paid him any mind for the next few weeks. Whenever he was in the Castle, she was gone. And when he was in the Third Rail or wandering the city with Danse, she was visiting the Castle and fixing everything that broke in her absence. It frustrated him, but he knew how things were with her. She was eternally busy and pulled in every possible direction at all times. There wasn’t always room for him.

            He just wished she’d take him with her sometimes. But he didn’t know why he still expected anything out of her; it was her decision to be with him, and if she didn’t want to anymore, that was fine. He didn’t have any kind of a claim to her.

            And the one time she did show up, she immediately sent him away.

            He and Danse were keeping watch outside one of the gates, with MacCready sitting on the edge of the pond and skipping stones across the mucky water.

            The thunder crack of her or X6’s arrival was a familiar sound by then.

            “Is it actually Nora?” he looked up at Danse, who turned to face the courtyard. He didn’t really know when they had become friends. He was 98% sure that this was no longer an assignment from Maxson so much as it was an actual friendship. MacCready didn’t know when he had changed from barely tolerating Danse to actually wanting to spend time with him.

            “It actually is,” the paladin glanced down at him. “That blasted courser is with her, too.”

            “Smug piece of sh—bas—rude dumpster fire,” MacCready stumbled over the words as he pushed himself off of the ground.

            “I’m not going to judge you for your choices in language, but you really should come up with some higher quality insults,” Danse led the way into the courtyard.

            “What are you doing here?” MacCready stopped in front of the two of them. More of Nora’s armor was synth pieces now.

            “I need your help with something,” Nora looked between the two of them. “There’s a settlement named Lynn Woods that has apparently disappeared from all contact. Can the two of you go check it out? It’s to the west of the insane asylum.”

            “Of course,” Danse spoke without hesitation.

            But MacCready did hesitate. “Are you not going to stick around?”

            “No, sorry,” her voice softened and she reached out to touch his forearm. “I had to find someone to get it done. I’m leaving as soon as I can for University Point.”

            “We’ll get it done,” the paladin crossed his arms.

            “Why not send some Institute schmucks to do it?” MacCready grumbled as he stepped back.

            “I’m not sending the Institute because it isn’t Institute business, and it might be too dangerous for some synths as it is,” Nora shot back. “I can send Deacon, if you’d prefer.”

            “Since when did you care that much about some synths? We’ll be going,” MacCready turned towards the gaping hole in the castle wall. Danse followed after him, though he wasn’t so quick to turn away.

            They walked in silence until they made it out of the city, passing by Bunker Hill without a second thought and finding themselves in the open wilderness of the northern Commonwealth. Also known as Deathclaw Hell.

            A deathclaw was the last thing he wanted to run into.

            “Rumor is that there’s an old man kept in the bottom of the insane asylum,” MacCready broke the silence. “But no one’s ever made it down there. Someone keeps the place guarded by a troop of gunners.”

            “Where’d you gain that bit of intel?” Danse looked down at him, one eyebrow raised. “Or do I even want to know?”

            “I picked it up when I was trying to get into Med-Tek,” he pointed at a cluster of buildings in the distance. “Drifters like to ramble.”

            “For your son?”

            “Yeah, for Duncan,” he pushed his hands into his pockets. His fingers were red with the cold. “A lot of good that did. I take it Maxson told you?”

            “He did,” Danse nodded. “He believes that you are dishonorable and that any real man would have stayed with his sick child until the end.” The paladin paused, eyes scanning the horizon. “I don’t agree with him.”

            “You’re allowed to hold opinions that don’t line up with your lord and savior Elder Arthur Maxson’s beliefs? Is this an act of insubordination?” He feigned surprise. “He must not have included the part about me leaving him to join a band of killers.”

            “Very funny, RJ,” Danse rolled his eyes.

            “And now you’re calling me nicknames? Did you just join the gunners too?” the mercenary continued the gag. “No, really. Why in the world do you think I’m a decent human being?”

            “Because you are,” the paladin made a face. “Elder Maxson judges by a man’s actions and little more. If he understood you as a person, he would think differently. He never truly experienced wasteland life like we did, anyways. He always had Brotherhood soldiers providing support or protecting him from a young age. I don’t think that you would have left your home unless you felt as if you had no other options.”

            “Huh,” MacCready kicked through a dead bush as they walked. “You grew up in the wasteland too?”

            “I sold scrap as a young man until the Brotherhood picked me and my best friend up. Cutler was like a brother to me until he was taken by super mutants and turned into one of them.” Danse fiddled with something on his laser rifle. “I had to kill him myself.”

            “At least you’re justified in your actions,” MacCready could see the telltale metal fence of the Slog coming up. “I couldn’t bring myself to join the Brotherhood, even after what happened to Lucy. I didn’t like the kind of control you guys were seeking in the Capital, and the gunners paid better. I needed all the caps I could get to send back to Duncan or use to buy my way to a cure.”

            “That’s what Maxson doesn’t know about you,” Danse, for once, didn’t seem to mind walking past the Slog.

            “I just hope he doesn’t tell Nora,” the mercenary frowned. “I couldn’t make myself tell her.”

            The paladin let out a long breath, blowing a cloud in the wind. “I have some suspicions about Nora that I’m not sure how to deal with.”

            MacCready furrowed his brow. What in the world did he mean? “What?”

            “There is reason to believe that isn’t Nora.”

            “Okay, you’re generally pretty smart about this stuff, but that’s a load of bull,” the mercenary crossed his arms. “Really?”

            “I wouldn’t joke about this,” Danse huffed. “She’s no longer treating you like she used to, and she’s apparently become quite brisk with the rest of the Commonwealth. Several innocent people have turned up dead after confronting her over theft or other issues. There’s also rumor that she was behind Magnolia’s disappearance.”

            “Hold on—Magnolia disappeared?” MacCready stopped in his tracks.

            The paladin stopped too. “She did, just a few days ago. Supposedly stolen by the Institute, or even taken back. Nora was there earlier in the day with the courser, and apparently—that’s all. Magnolia disappeared after that.” Danse stuttered over the words, red staining his cheeks. He suddenly couldn’t meet his gaze.

            “Apparently what?” MacCready’s stomach dropped. The paladin generally only got uncomfortable about overtly personal information or sexual situations. “Who slept with who?”

            Danse grimaced. “Nora… slept with Magnolia. Neither one of them was seen leaving Magnolia’s room. And, later, she did the same thing to Curie and Nick. All three of them haven’t been seen since, but there wasn’t enough conclusive evidence for any kind of an investigation to be launched. It would have helped if we had Nick to investigate, but that clearly can’t happen.” Even the paladin seemed upset about the incidents.

            “Oh,” MacCready felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He didn’t know what to believe anymore, but three disappearances under the same circumstances seemed pretty conclusive. Especially when two of them were known synths. “Just,” he took a deep breath, “Just drop it. We can figure this out later.”

           

            Lynn Woods was in ruin. It was night by the time they got there, with heavy raindrops falling on their shoulders. They only found the settlement by the orange glow of a fire.

Much of the furniture and even a shack sat in the middle of the raging bonfire. The fire didn’t even sputter at the rain that was beginning to fall. The rest of the buildings were littered with dead bodies, and the tower to the south was booby trapped to all hell. Danse chose to handle the tower and left MacCready to the settlement and his thoughts.

            What did Nora think she was doing? Since the paladin’s revelation, he felt as if he couldn’t trust anything the sole survivor did. Was she sending them away now to do more of the Institute’s dirty work? Or was he just being overly suspicious?

            He didn’t know anymore.

            Instead he busied himself digging through trunks and ammo boxes and gathering up anything remotely valuable; Nora had once called him a raccoon because he adored shiny things and wouldn’t drop any of it. He had no idea what a raccoon was, but he suspected the creature was extinct.

            MacCready was trying to bash the padlock off of a steamer trunk when voices met his ears. They weren’t settlers; he was reminded of that when he stepped on an outstretched hand.

            Raiders. Though it was dark and rainy, he caught a glimpse of the telltale caged armor when he dared to peek through the wooden slats in the wall. He raised his rifle and lined it up with the slat in the wood. One shot was better than no shot.

            The group of raiders scattered as soon as the man in the caged armor fell.

            “Who the fuck?” one shouted. She was next to go when a laser shot found the top of her head. MacCready took his distraction to steal across the street and into the tower.

            He raced up the spiral steps until he finally found himself at the top of the tower, nearly tripping over a dead woman’s feet.

            “Raiders took the place. I guess they came back for their loot,” he gasped. Despite all the running and fighting he did on a daily basis, stairs still winded him.

            “I see that,” Danse was leaning over the edge of the tower and firing down at the intruders. “This box is connected to that siren,” he turned to tap the connector box that was wired to a small tower. “I don’t know what that siren signals, and I wanted to have a full head count before I pulled it.”

            MacCready leaned over the edge too, shaking away the sudden sense of vertigo when he looked down. They were up much higher than he originally thought. He blinked the rain out of his eyes and swung his rifle over the edge. “Well, it looks like they’re all hiding now.”

            “Keep them pinned,” Danse clanked to the other side of the platform and pulled the lever. An ominous siren began to blare, echoing off of the rocks around them and drowning out the sound of the rain.

            The mercenary frowned when all of the raiders broke cover and ran for the hills. “They’re running,” he muttered as he shot one in the back. “What did you just call up here?” he glanced over his shoulder. Danse still had his hand on the lever. He shut the siren off a moment later.

            An ugly roar answered his question. A deathclaw swiped at one of the remaining raiders. It had appeared out of practically nowhere. And it had a friend. The other deathclaw was much, much larger, with wickedly curved horns and long, razor-sharp spines.

            “Was that a—“ Danse suddenly spoke from right next to him when he bent to peer into the darkness.

            MacCready turned away from the edge and sat down against the wall. “We’re dead,” he breathed. “There’s no way we’re going to beat two deathclaws.”

            “That’s a matriarch,” Danse crouched down in front of him. “We’re going to have to do something. If those things catch our scent, they’ll tear this tower apart until they can get to us.”

            “Okay, let me think,” MacCready pushed his hat back. Water was running off of the brim and the canvas fabric was soaked. He gave the paladin a devilish grin. “I have a plan. You jump off and get eaten while I sneak off and survive.”

            “Absolutely not,” Danse made a face at him. “Though that is a start.”

            “What, the whole me sneaking off thing or the part where you die?”

            “The jump,” Danse glanced up at the siren. “The deathclaws might not hear us if we jump while the siren’s activated.”

            “You want me to jump too? I thought the plan was for you to die,” the mercenary pulled his cap back on and wiped the rain off of his scope.

            “Do you trust me?” Danse stood up and reached for the lever.

            “Not when you ask me that,” MacCready scrambled to his feet, one of his boots slipping on the wet floor.

            “Good,” the paladin pulled the lever and grabbed him before he could get away. Danse threw him over his shoulder and stepped up onto the edge.

            “No, no, no, no, this is not what I meant!” MacCready’s voice was yanked away by the wind when Danse jumped out into nothing. His stomach flew into his throat and he decided that he very much didn’t like freefalling.

            He didn’t like hitting the ground, either. Though the paladin’s power armor took the brunt of the impact, it didn’t stop him from smacking his chin on the shoulder plating. Still, MacCready kept a death grip on his rifle and managed to push himself up to peer through the scope as Danse took off running.

            They were probably a ridiculous sight. It wasn’t a normal thing to see a Brotherhood paladin sprinting across the Commonwealth with a ratty mercenary thrown over his shoulder.

            “Are they following?” Danse had one arm hooked around his knees to keep him steady.

            The mercenary pulled away from his rifle and scanned the horizon behind them. It was difficult to make out much of anything when he was being jostled and bumped around. But he didn’t see any massive lizards behind them.

            “I don’t think so,” he pushed his hat back on his head. “Will you put me down?”

            “We’re almost there.” Danse knelt and let him stand on his own. “I have a place we can stay the night. I don’t want to be out in this weather, especially not with the chance of a couple of deathclaws tracking us.”

            “Lead the way,” MacCready didn’t stop throwing glances over his shoulder until they reached the location. It was a small bunker, sealed by a terminal and tucked into a small valley.

            Danse let them inside and securely locked the door behind them. The inside of the bunker was small and cluttered with boxes and a large desk in the center of the room.

            “Welcome to Listening Post Bravo. It’s a location my squad and I found and decided to mark as a rendezvous if anything went wrong.” Danse looked around the dim room with pride. “It’s fully stocked to feed five people for four weeks, comfortably.”

            “You’re kidding. There’s nothing here, other than a desk and some boxes of crap.” MacCready turned towards the window. Rain was leaking in through the open slit in the wall. “And it’s going to be full of water if this rain keeps up.” He didn’t dare step closer when he saw a hulking form in the darkness.

            “This is just the entrance,” Danse clanked over to the elevator, oblivious to the threat outside.

            “You might want to get us into the other part, then,” the mercenary backed away from the window. “We have some visitors who really, really want to come inside.”

            “What?” The paladin turned to look at him, tightening his grip on his rifle. “Did they track us through the rain?”

            MacCready’s answer was drowned out by a thundering roar, followed by a heavy thump when the deathclaw launched itself at the bunker. It reached one hand into the window, slinging water and mud all over MacCready and sending dust raining down from the ceiling.

            “There’s an elevator here,” Danse grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him toward the door, safely out of reach and nearly out of sight. The deathclaw continued to snarl and claw at the window, pulling chunks of cement free from the wall.

            “That thing had better not ruin our elevator while we’re down there,” the mercenary swallowed and checked the chamber on his rifle. “I’m not going to test how long food for five people will last the two of us.”

            “I can do the math on it, if you’d like.” Danse pushed him inside once the elevator doors opened and mashed the close button. The last thing they saw through the window was a single angry eye peering in at them.

            The doors reopened to a larger, better lit room. Well, better lit meant lit at all.

MacCready made a beeline for one of the cots in the room and dumped his pack and rifle on it, then started peeling the soaked layers of clothing off of his shoulders. He was in his undershirt and an extra pair of pants and laying a blanket across another bed when he noticed Danse’s lack of activity.

“I don’t think you need to keep watch down here,” he commented as he started laying his wet clothes out to dry by the fire the paladin had lit. Danse was standing next to the fire, still in his dripping wet power armor. The suits seemed to hold a ton of water.

“No, I don’t.” The paladin finally moved, walking to a power armor station in the corner and stepping out of the suit. He took the time to cable it up and hung it from the rig, then walked back to the fire and unzipped his soggy jumpsuit and stepped out of it, leaving him in a plain white shirt and shorts.

“Do you think Nora knew what was waiting for us out here?” Danse sat down on the floor next to the fire.

“What, the raiders? That was kind of a given with the whole disappeared settlement thing.” MacCready sat down on the bed and wrapped his blanket around his shoulders.

“No, I mean the deathclaws. She refused to send the Institute to handle this because who can take out two deathclaws at once?” Danse stared intently into the flames. “What if she meant for us to die?”

The mercenary shook his head. “She wouldn’t send us here to die. How could she know there was a pair of deathclaws hanging around waiting for the siren to go off?” He tucked his feet up on the bed and put his head on the pillow. “She’s not out to kill us, Danse. I’m getting some rest.”

The paladin didn’t seem convinced, though he said nothing more.

 

MacCready woke up late the next morning. He had no idea where the sun was in the sky, but he knew he had slept far more than usual. Danse was asleep in one of the other beds, covered by his thick Brotherhood-issue blanket and quietly snoring.

The mercenary forced himself out of bed to turn over the still-warm coals in the fire pit and tried to coax some heat out of the ashes.

He eventually brought the fire back to life and started roasting some radstag meat over it. A quiet moment to do nothing but wait on meat to cook was somewhat welcome. It gave him a chance to think about what Danse had said, both about Nora and about Lynn Woods.

Truthfully, Magnolia’s disappearance was something he never wanted to hear. Neither was Curie’s or Nick’s, though he knew the detective would bite the bullet sooner or later. All three of them, synths or not, had been real people and real parts of people’s lives.

Any thoughts he had about possibly supporting Nora’s decision to follow the Institute were wiped out. Just when she had him thinking they were going to do the right thing, just when she made him think they were harmless, they sent her to steal back three of the best people in the Commonwealth. And they were people, not just some abomination created by scientists.

And, the more he thought about it, the more he knew Danse was right. Nick had taken a trip to Diamond City weeks ago and never returned. Nora had taken Curie to Goodneighbor under the pretense of failing memories. Curie never came back. Was Sturges gone too? He had been sent to Sanctuary for maintenance, but some supply liners said he never arrived.

How could he be so stupid? Every sign was pointing towards something wrong, but he had ignored it for the sake of believing in his little fairytale ending with Nora. Her disappearances, her avoiding him for no real reason, her short attitude and reckless endangerment of their lives, all of it pointed towards something being Not Right.

MacCready sighed and pushed his rumpled hair off of his forehead. He needed to let go of it. He needed to let go of whatever they had, whatever he hoped they would become. Lynn Woods was just confirmation. She sent him away as soon as she got the chance to, pushed him out of the Castle as soon as she arrived and straight into the face of danger. He dreaded going back to the Castle, dreaded the possibilities of what could have happened. He wished he had never acted on his interest in her, at least until he knew what kind of a person she actually was.

That is, if she was actually a person.

He wished Danse hadn’t told him at all, but he also wished he had known sooner and had the chance to confront her. There was no use in sitting and letting his thoughts fester, no matter how betrayed or stupid he felt. He took the radstag meat off of the fire and wrapped a piece of it for the road, then cut the second piece in half to share with his friend.

Speaking of the devil, Danse startled him when he quietly sat down next to him.

“Don’t do that,” MacCready muttered as he handed a share of the radstag over. “You’re too quiet out of that power armor.”

“Sorry,” Danse shrugged as he tucked into the juicy meat. It was a little too gamey for MacCready’s taste, but beggars couldn’t be choosers in the wasteland.


	8. Chapter 8

They set out for the Castle within the hour. It was nearly a day’s walk away, and they had no desire to get caught in the dark again. Of course, they had little choice. The sun was already directly above their heads when they surfaced.

They were crossing the bridge just past the Slog when trouble found them.

“Stop,” Danse put a hand on his shoulder as he froze in the middle of the road. They were halfway across the bridge, stuck between the wastes behind them and the Revere Satellite Array in front of them. “Did you hear that?”

Truthfully, MacCready hadn’t heard much of anything. He hadn’t been paying the closest attention, not when he had so much on his mind and so much noise coming from Danse’s armor. “No. What did it sound like?”

“Nothing good,” the paladin slowly turned around, scanning the area. “Possibly a deathclaw under the bridge. I heard its claws scraping.”

“Great,” MacCready shouldered his rifle and pulled his cap tighter onto his head. “Game plan?” Another deathclaw was the last thing he wanted to deal with.

“Kill it. We can’t exactly run for help or we’ll lead the thing to the Slog.” Danse switched the safety off on his rifle and checked his sights.

They both stiffened when the ground shook below them. Definitely a deathclaw. Or a behemoth, which was just as undesirable.

“What if we let the super mutants take care of it?” the mercenary pointed at the satellite array. “Just lead it over there. They’ll be far more concerned with it than they will be with us.”

“Smart, but unrealistic. We have a big gap to jump or we’ll get stuck in the water. That thing would grab us before we could get out.”

“Well, anything is better than standing here like a couple of targets,” he started walking again, straight for the gap. The ground shook again, followed by a deep grumble.

“I have an idea, but it’s going to anger the deathclaw more than running.” MacCready turned to see a grenade in the paladin’s hand. “All we have to do is survive until the vertibird gets here.”

“That would make our trip a lot quicker. Call it,” the mercenary hunkered down behind a concrete barrier and propped his rifle up on top of it. Danse pulled the pin and chucked the grenade farther down the highway, back the way they had come. It was a better place to put the vertibird, but a place that obstructed their view of the deathclaw.

Waiting for the vertibird was hellish. Danse found a place next to him and they waited in tense silence. The few minutes seemed to last hours with the deathclaw growing more and more agitated beneath them.

MacCready knew they were in trouble when he stopped hearing the monster.

The deathclaw’s head suddenly appeared over the guardrail on their right, its heavy claws bending the metal and causing the whole line to groan. Both of them scrambled back, barely avoiding the snapping teeth and grabbing claws. The monster gave a deafening roar that blasted their faces with hot, humid breath that smelled of rotten carcasses and garbage.

“Shi—crap, run!” MacCready managed to get to his feet and took off, bent over and half falling until he finally regained his balance. The deathclaw was clawing its way onto the overpass, and Danse was just a little too slow.

“Get out of here!” The paladin only got a couple of shots off before the giant lizard grabbed him with one massive hand and sent him flying farther down the highway. Chunks of armor flew in every direction and sparks flew when Danse tumbled to a stop. He was way, way too close to the gap in the highway.

What was he supposed to do? Danse was completely motionless and the deathclaw was slowly stalking towards its next meal. Shooting it would only enrage it even more.

MacCready did the only thing he could do and grabbed the grenade.

“Hey, you overgrown newt!” he pulled his sidearm free and fired two shots into the air. The deathclaw wheeled around, tail lashing and nostrils flaring. It seemed as if it couldn’t decide to focus on him or on the smoke pouring from his hand. “Leave the tin can alone!”

He only needed a little while longer. He could hear the vertibird in the distance.

The deathclaw hurled dust at him and charged, barely giving him the chance to roll out of the way. One of its feet nearly caught his leg, the claws slashing through his pants and nicking his skin. He got back up as soon as he could and ran for the guardrail. It was his one chance to distract the monster enough to keep it away from Danse and give the vertibird the chance to arrive.

MacCready hurled the grenade as far as he could, sending a streak of smoke across the sky. The ground shook as the deathclaw turned around, claws scrabbling for purchase on the asphalt. Then he hurled himself over the side of the bridge and realized his mistake. He had severely underestimated the distance he was going to fall.

“Shit,” he breathed just before he hit the ground. He bounced and rolled down an embankment, finally coming to a stop against a crumbled piece of concrete. A piece of rebar caught the outside of his ribs, digging a gash across his side. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe. And there was a furious deathclaw skidding down the embankment.

Thankfully, the monster was more focused on the smoke than it was on him. He lay there, chest convulsing uselessly, as the deathclaw took a huge bound over him and continued on for the smoke grenade. MacCready didn’t dare to move until he saw the vertibird fly over and heard its minigun spin up.

“Fu—frick,” he awkwardly shimmied onto his stomach and forced his way up to his feet. The ground pitched and tipped underneath him and he could barely force his eyes to focus. Probably a concussion, if he really thought about it. But thinking hurt. A chunk of fabric was on the piece of rebar that had sliced him open. Everything seemed to hurt, including his freshly healed wrist. He’d be amazed if something wasn’t broken.

Still, he limped his way up the embankment and to where the overpass met the ground on his right. The vertibird was pulling tight circles around the deathclaw, spraying it with bullets until the minigun overheated and it had to pull off. The giant lizard roared up at the vertibird and hurled a rock up at it. The rock shattered into a million pieces when it met with one of the propellers, showering the deathclaw in fragments.

MacCready turned his back on the scene and gingerly climbed over the guardrail, then made his way up the highway towards where Danse was rolling over. One shoulder of his armor was completely gone, broken into pieces on the asphalt. He picked up his sniper rifle from where he had dropped it in the mad dash to get away from the deathclaw and continued. The path to his friend seemed to be a million miles long.

The paladin slowly sat up, shaking his head. “RJ?” He called. His eyes were on the vertibird and deathclaw in the distance.

“I’m right here,” he winced. “Or, working on it.”

The deathclaw finally fell with an earsplitting scream. MacCready worked his pack off of his shoulders and dug out his last stimpak. He uncapped it and jabbed the needle into his side, feeling the immediate tingling cool that came with it. His breathing eased and his vision cleared.

“Not going to share?” Danse stood up and started pulling ruined chunks of armor off of his shoulder.

“Your buddies have to have one somewhere,” he jerked his head in the general direction of the vertibird, which was landing down the highway.

“They’d rather lock me up in the infirmary in favor of using an actual doctor,” the paladin started towards the vertibird, soon greeted by a scribe who nearly tripped stepping off of the platform.

“Leave your armor here, we’ll pick up any pieces that can be salvaged later,” the scribe glanced between the two of them.

“I know, I know,” Danse triggered the unlock and stepped out of the ruined armor, having to force his arm free when the damaged pieces wouldn’t unlock. His shoulder was marked by three gashes and slowly oozing blood. The scribe pulled some bandages out of his pack and pressed them to the wounds.

“Hey, no civilians allowed on board,” the scribe tried to stop MacCready as Danse climbed into the vertibird. “These things are for Brotherhood use only.

“I’m with Danse,” the mercenary protested. “I just saved his life!”

“Let him on,” the paladin spoke up as he eased himself into one of the seats. “He’s a friend.”

“But Paladin,” the scribe opened and shut his mouth indignantly. “Transporting a non-Brotherhood member is against protocol.”

“I don’t care,” Danse leaned his head back against the seat’s headrest. “Get in, RJ.”

MacCready resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at the scribe and clambered into the seat next to Danse.

“Directives, Paladin?” the pilot twisted in his seat to look back at them.

“The Prydwen,” the paladin waved the scribe’s hands off. “Save it for the infirmary, Hundley.”

“But you’re bleeding,” Hundley grabbed onto one of the overhead handles as they took off.

“It’s a shoulder wound. I’m not bleeding out,” Danse closed his eyes.

MacCready looked out the side of the bird and tried to ignore the scribe’s insistent helpfulness. They were flying as far away from the Revere array as possible without giving up a quick course back. He could see the super mutants shaking their fists and a couple of rockets faintly hissed past them. If they were hit, it was the end of all of them. He’d never seen anyone survive a vertibird crash, not even power armored sentinels.

They soon passed the satellite array and flew over the lower half of Boston. The Prydwen swung into view and the pilot began chattering into the radio, giving codes and signals.

“We’re cleared for landing,” he spoke up after a moment. They slowed to fly beneath the beast of a ship and then jolted to a stop when the landing rig caught them.

“Stay with me,” Danse grunted and forced himself to his feet. “They’ll try to send you back out here.”

“I’m not about to be manhandled by some Brotherhood devotee,” he wedged his shoulder underneath Danse’s armpit and helped hold him up. “They let Nora on here all the time.”

“Nora’s a paladin, RJ. She can do pretty much as she pleases on this ship. You’re a mercenary who, as far as they know, happened to be there when I got picked up.” The paladin nearly stumbled off of the vertibird and onto the catwalk.

“What is he doing here?” one of the door guards muttered as they passed. MacCready gave him a dirty look.

Once they got there, Danse practically collapsed onto one of the beds in the infirmary. The doctor bandaged and sedated him, then turned to face the mercenary.

“Paladin Danse may have preferred your presence with him, but civilians are not authorized on the Prydwen or on any Brotherhood aircraft.” The doctor nodded at the two guards at the door. “Particularly not mercenaries with cheap mouths.”

“I’m not leaving,” MacCready reached for his sidearm under the side of his duster. The knights rushed forward and grabbed him by both arms and started hauling him out of the room. “I can stay here! You can’t just kick me out like this!” he managed to kick the unarmored knight in the back of the knee, forcing him to fall and release his arm in the process.

The mercenary tore free from the other knight’s grip and drew his sidearm. “I’m staying here. You can’t make me leave my friend,” he knew he was backed into a corner, but he hoped the knights wouldn’t push the issue. They did.

“Take him to Elder Maxson,” the doctor ordered. The knights rushed him and knocked his pistol out of his hands, then his head against the wall. MacCready stumbled to the side and fell to his knees, barely remembering the drag from the infirmary to the captain’s quarters.

He did, however, fully wake up when he was thrown down at Maxson’s feet.

“What is this mercenary doing on my ship?” The elder barely spared him a glance. MacCready pushed himself up and scuttled backwards, his boots and hands barely getting any traction on the polished floor.

“He came on board with Paladin Danse and refused to leave peacefully.” One of the knights explained. “We had to remove him by force when he continued to resist.”

“I see. What is your explanation for this?” Maxson’s cold gaze found him.

“Danse said that I can stay, and I’ve been permitted to come on board with Nora in the past. I’m just here because he’s wounded,” the mercenary stood up, dusting himself off and throwing sideways glances at the knights. “I’d prefer if you didn’t get your lackeys to manhandle me and try to kick me off of the ship.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t fight my men tooth and nail to remain on a ship that you have no right to be on,” Maxson growled. His gaze turned up when the door opened. “Paladin,” he dipped his head. “Such impeccable timing. Make sure that your mercenary here makes it off of my ship without starting a fight.”

MacCready turned and saw Nora pulling her sunglasses off and putting them on top of her head, pack slung over one shoulder and X6-88 following behind her.

“Robert? What are you doing here?” She furrowed her brow as she stopped next to him, the courser lingering behind. “What happened at Lynn Woods?”

“I’m trying to stay here for Danse. Crap happened at Lynn Woods,” he crossed his arms. Not only did he hate to see X6 in general, he hated to see the synth allowed on board while they were trying their damnedest to kick him off. “Are you just going to bring—to let her bring a synth in here?” The words came stumbling out before he could stop them.

“A synth?” Maxson narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, a synth?”

“Do you not know who this guy is?” MacCready threw a hand in X6’s direction. “Some dude comes walking in in a big black coat and brand spanking new sunglasses and you don’t question anything? He’s a courser, that’s who he is!”

“Is this true, Paladin?” The elder stepped forward until he was directly in front of Nora. MacCready took his chance and scooted further to the side, safely out of Maxson’s reach. “You’ve knowingly brought the enemy directly onto our ship?”

“I’ve brought you the data you requested,” Nora held out a small drive. Her expression and tone had suddenly turned to strict business. “The rest doesn’t matter.”

“No, Nora, it does matter. That _thing_ is collecting data to use against us, regardless of your data transfer!” Maxson spat. “Get your mercenary off of my ship.”

“I’m taking him with me.” She jerked her head towards the courser.

“I can’t allow that, Paladin. What you’ve brought me had better be worth it, or you will lose your rank and be marked an enemy of the Brotherhood of Steel.” He motioned the knights forward. This time they grabbed X6-88 by the arms and a third Brotherhood member began disarming him. Weapon after weapon after weapon clattered to the floor, until finally they forced the courser to his knees. “Do you fully understand the pledge and intent of the Brotherhood, Nora?”

She stopped for a long moment, her jaw working and her eyes flicking from face to face. Nora looked like a trapped animal more than a person. She looked more like a product of the Commonwealth—a stranger—than herself. “I understand,” she finally said.

“Then you’ll carry out your duty as a Brotherhood soldier.” Maxson’s gaze was severe as he held out a revolver.

“Ma’am, you can’t do this,” X6 protested. He tried to yank himself free. “You said—“

“I know what I said, X6-88,” she hurriedly cut him off as she took the revolver and spun the cylinder and chambered a round. “I know what I said. I shouldn’t have brought you here,” she pulled the hammer back and took aim.

MacCready looked away when she pulled the trigger.

Silence fell over the room for a long moment. Nora heavily placed the revolver in Maxson’s open hand. Blood was splattered across her white Institute armor. “Are you satisfied?” her eyes remained on the corpse on the floor.

“The data drive,” he didn’t withdraw his hand until she handed it over. “You are dismissed,” he finally waved them out.

“Come on,” Nora grabbed him by the arm, pulled him out of the door onto the deck, then prodded him onto a vertibird. Their ride to the Castle was spent in silence until they reached her quarters. She slammed the door behind him and threw her glasses down.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Why the fuck would you say that?” Her voice raised into a shout. Her expression was furious, darkening the green in her eyes and wrinkling the bridge of her nose. “You just got a man killed!”

Anger caused his temples to pound and loosened his mouth. Or maybe it was the concussion, he wasn’t sure. “Because you hauled that goddamn courser onto the ship and I needed something to save my ass! You want to fucking blame me for pointing out what was obvious? And, according to your stupid pledge to those racists, he never was a man! Choose a side, Nora!”

“Pointing that out was completely unnecessary. Who do you think you are?” She spat, her gaze raking his skin. “You think you can just throw me under the bus? I can’t lose what I have with the Brotherhood.”

“Yeah, because you’ve become a really, really shitty person since you found your precious son in the Institute. Reclaiming Magnolia and Nick and Curie? Murdering innocent people? Sending me and Danse to die in Lynn Woods? And maybe, if you would just choose who you’re going to side with, you never would have been in this situation!”

“Don’t,” her voice began loud, but she took a breath and steadied herself. She looked away from him and raked a hand through her hair. It had lost its shine, turned dull and scraggly. “Don’t start on that.” She said more quietly.

“I’m starting on it,” he refused to slow down. Nothing would slow him down. “Because it sure seems like they’ve replaced you with something else. You went to the Institute and you suddenly started dragging that goddamn courser everywhere and you started ignoring everyone else. You started disappearing more and more, and more and more people started disappearing with you. I’ve heard the rumors, and they seem pretty fucking conclusive.”

Nora stared at him for a long moment, fiddling with something in a pocket on her chestplate. “You’re not quite as selfish and unobservant as I thought you were, you know that?” She pulled a pair of brass knuckles out of her chestplate, spinning them idly on one finger. There was a knife fixed on one end. It was a crude weapon, but an effective one. “I’m not Nora. The real Nora is dead, as far as I’m concerned. They let her live just long enough to become a beacon of hope for the Commonwealth, for her to get access to each faction. Then they let her into the Institute. And, when she came to visit, they took her and replaced her with a perfect synth copy. I, NH-87, am that perfect synth.”

“And you’re here to twist the whole Commonwealth around and bring it crashing down so that the Institute can come in and take over,” he took a careful step back and tucked his hand behind his back to grab the handle on his truncheon. He got the sickening sense that he was going to need it.

“Naturally. What else would a synth be here for, if not to bring glory to its makers?” She suddenly moved, knocking him back against the wall and pressing the knife to his throat. “I think you know that I can’t have anyone finding out about this,” she licked her dry lips. “And to keep that from happening, you need to disappear.”

“I know,” he grunted when she jammed her forearm against his chest to keep him pinned to the wall. The Institute hadn’t fucked around making her; she was almost definitely stronger than he was. He tightened his grip on his truncheon and waited for his chance.

“You have a couple choices here, Robert,” she pressed the blade tighter against his neck. He felt claustrophobic like this, shoved up against the wall by an adapted courser in a locked room where no one could hear. “I can kill you now, or I can send you to someone else to be killed. Personally, I prefer sending you off to be killed. It makes my life a lot easier not having to clean you up off of the floor.”

The truncheon extended with a short click. He rolled onto one shoulder against the wall, guiding NH-87’s angry swipe against the side of his neck. He whipped the truncheon up and smacked the side of her head. The mercenary forced it beneath her chin and shoved her head back. He used his other arm to haul the knife away from his throat and dropped his shoulder, throwing his full weight into a shove.

            The synth stumbled back and nearly tripped over the coffee table, but recovered and swiped at him again, only to miss and nearly lose her knife when he caught her wrist. He dug his thumb into the pulse point inside her wrist and yanked the knife off of her fingers and kicked it away from them.

            “I think I’d much rather stay alive, thank you,” he spun his truncheon into a backhanded grip. “But if I have to choose, I’ll go with letting someone else kill me.” He swiped at the blood on his neck with his free hand.

            “Bad choice,” she slowly circled, working her way closer to the knuckled knife on the floor. “Baker and his gunners will be more than happy to make you suffer.”

            MacCready toed the weapon closer to his feet. “Good luck getting me there,” he ducked to avoid a vicious swing from her fist, but never saw her knee. She caught him square in the face and he knew nothing more.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! sorry for the delay on this chapter! I got behind on writing and kind of got dumped this weekend, so productivity hit zero for a few days :( but don't worry!! the next chapters should be up at a normal rate!! feedback is always appreciated :)

MacCready woke up to quiet talking and the stink of mud and fish and rot. The smell was a familiar one; it occupied most of the southern end of the Commonwealth. And, if NH-87 was telling the truth, he knew exactly where he was without opening his eyes. Quincy.

            “Boss? I think he’s awake,” someone next to him called. Crap, he must have moved when he was waking up.

Before he knew it, he was being hauled off of the ground, lifted by his upper arms. The two men pulling him left his knees to drag through the mud. His wrists were tightly bound behind his back and his feet were undoubtedly tied together as well. His upper lip and chin felt sticky and strange. Probably blood, if the ache in his nose was anything to go by. It actually had to be—no one took a knee to the face and didn’t bleed everywhere.

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like it,” a gruff voice spoke up from right in front of him. Baker’s voice. He could hear quite a few footsteps squishing through the mud around him, almost in a circle. It was probably the whole camp of gunners looking for some entertainment. The men carrying him stopped and a rough hand grabbed his chin and tipped his face up. “Looks like that synth beat the shit out of him, though.”

“How much did she pay?” Someone spoke up from his right, someone part of the circle.

“Enough to keep us going for a long time. Anyone she needs dead, we’re executing. No questions asked,” Baker’s grip tightened. “Though I would be more than glad to kill this one for free.”

MacCready curled his lips into a sneer. “We all know you’d never do anything for free, Baker,” he tried to open his eyes, only to find that one was swollen shut. Fuck. Still, it was satisfying to hear the snorts and snickers travel around the circle of gunners. “You’re really going to let the Institute pay you? Have some class.”

“There’s the weasel I was expecting,” the sergeant released his chin and pushed him back. MacCready barely kept his balance, forcing himself to stay upright and stand on his knees. The men holding him let go and walked to the sides of the circle.

Sure enough, he was right in the middle of Quincy. The sky was pitch black and the faces around him were lit by torches around the city square. A droplet of rain found his nose. The whole camp of gunners was standing in a circle around him and Baker, faces expectant and guard down. No one would touch Quincy, not when it was under Institute protection and pay. And there was Baker himself, standing in front of him with his arms crossed.

“You know why you’re here?” Baker stared down at him.

“To die, or something like that. There aren’t many other reasons why I’d be here right now.” He might have hoped for a more noble way to die, something he could be proud of. As if someone could be proud of the way they died. Instead he was going to die in the slop and stink of Quincy, bound hand and foot and defenseless, all because he was once tight on caps and thought he could put his sharpshooting to use.

“You’re here to die because you betrayed the Gunners and acted out against us. Not only did you continue to operate as a mercenary in our territory, you murdered our own on multiple occasions. You and I both know the punishment for traitors.” The sergeant held out his right hand. One of the gunners brought forward his sniper rifle. “You no longer deserve your weapons, your mark, or your life.”

MacCready set his jaw and nodded. “I know.”

Baker jammed the butt of his rifle into the mud and used one foot to keep it in place, holding the barrel with one hand. Then he snapped the butt off with a vicious stamp from his other foot. The scope was next to go. The sergeant stood the rifle up and kicked the scope off, then pulled a hammer off of his belt and bashed the barrel into an ugly bend.

“Throwing it into the mud would have ruined it just as nicely, you know? No reason to go tearing apart a perfectly good rifle,” MacCready squinted as best he could in the rain, which was steadily growing heavier and heavier.

“This piece of shit? All it’s worth is scrap. Besides,” thunder grumbled in the distance as he tossed the ruined rifle to the side. “We might keep you around for a little while. And we all know that there’s nothing more deadly than that rifle in your hands.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” the mercenary sat back, resting his weight on his heels.

“Where is it?” The sergeant waved a gunner in from the circle. She tugged his scarf off and slung it into the mud, searching for his tattoo. She stopped when she found it at the base of his neck and stepped back.

MacCready didn’t have time to react before Baker punched him, sending him sliding into the mud and igniting a sharp pain in his jaw. He rolled onto his side as soon as he had the bearings to—anything to get his face out of the mud.

“Does this traitor deserve to keep his mark? He has killed a number of our own, including Winlock and Barnes!” Baker had his fist in the air as he turned a circle to look at his troop of gunners. A wicked dagger was clutched in his fist. The men cheered in response, demanding his blood.

MacCready grunted when the sergeant suddenly turned on him and landed a vicious kick to his gut. The cheers grew louder when Baker pushed him onto his face and planted his knee in the center of his back. The sergeant grabbed his hair and yanked his head back.

“You’d better take a deep breath,” Baker gave him no chance to take a breath before he shoved his face into the mud. The knife bit into his skin a moment later. He wanted to scream or fight or do anything but sit through the pain. The blade and the mud burned into the back of his neck for what felt like an eternity until finally, finally, finally the knife sliced free and the knee left his back.

MacCready pulled his face out of the mud and sucked in as much air as he could. His vision was blurry and spinning and Baker seemed to pitch and reel where he stood.

“Get him,” the sergeant stepped out of the circle.

His only regret was failing Duncan for the sake of a synth.

The gunners rushed in on him and started kicking. All he could do was take the blows. They’d either beat him to death or leave him so destroyed he’d never know his name again. He didn’t know which one he preferred.

Except they stopped almost as soon as they began when a gunshot rang out, clear as day.

“Baker?” One shouted. “Baker! He’s dead!”

Suddenly the entire town burst into sound, ranging from gunshots to screaming to sinking footsteps in the mud. MacCready forced his eyes open and tried to make out what was going on. There was a line of fire coming from the overpass above the town, and the gunners were being forced into a smaller and smaller cluster by unseen attackers.

The attackers weren’t messing around, either. They had a clear strategy, though the glare from their laser and electro shots was enough to hide their uniforms.

MacCready nearly jumped out of his skin when hands found his shoulders and started dragging him through the muck.

“Are you made of mud?” his rescuer pulled him into the church and quickly cut his wrists and ankles free. The air shimmered with the refraction from a stealth boy. “God, you’re a mess. Did Nora hit you in the face with a sledgehammer?”

“Deacon?” the mercenary didn’t bother trying to follow where the spy was going. Instead he focused on sitting up and regaining his bearings. “And no, she didn’t.”

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” Deacon’s voice came from the doorway. He heard the click of a magazine being shoved into a gun and then a few muffled shots. “You just got your ass saved and you’re asking questions?”

“The Railroad has no reason to be here,” MacCready struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on one of the pews. “And you’re asking more questions than I am.”

“Hey, no standing up. Did I say you could get up?” the spy spoke up next to him, nearly making him jump out of his skin. Invisible hands made him sit down in the pew, then his footsteps returned to the doorway. “And you’re right, the Railroad has no reason to come in and fuck up a bunch of Gunners. But we do have reason to come and rescue one of our own. And the Minutemen have reason to come in and take back what’s theirs.”

The mercenary noticed a body at his feet. Said body had a pistol still clutched in his fingers. He bent down and pulled the pistol free, tucking it into his filthy duster.

And, of all things, he heard a vertibird outside. “Ride’s here,” Deacon’s stealth boy finally wore off and he appeared next to him. “Come on,” he hoisted MacCready to his feet with one shoulder under his and walked him out to where the vertibird was waiting. “Once this thing drops you off, you need to disappear. Got it?”

The mercenary blinked as he was pushed up onto the platform and pulled by a new set of hands into a seat. “What do you mean?”

“I know what’s up,” Deacon shouted over the noise. “And I know that you need to get the hell out of the Commonwealth.”

MacCready still had no idea what he meant, but didn’t protest as someone buckled him into the seat

“I shouldn’t have sent Haylen to Lexington,” a familiar voice spoke as his head was turned to the side. Danse. “She’d know how to fix this.”

He pushed the paladin’s hands away and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. What’s going on? Why is the Brotherhood working with the Minutemen and the Railroad?” Danse looked strange and small without his power armor on, he noticed. Like a man and not a soldier. He also noticed that the paladin’s face was haggard and his eyes shifty.

“The Brotherhood isn’t working with them,” Danse spoke as they lifted into the sky. “Haylen and Rhys and I are acting out on our own. Things have changed.”

“Okay, I need more information than that. Deacon wouldn’t tell me jack squat, and now you’re being all vague and ‘things have changed’-y.” MacCready rolled his wrists, wincing at the cuts in them from the ropes. He wasn’t going to be recovering from this anytime soon.

“You’re looking a little worse for wear,” Rhys spoke up from the cockpit. “You think your nose will ever be on straight again?” His sharp eyes were staring at him through a mirror hanging from the glass.

“Enough, Rhys. Just get us to the rendezvous.” The paladin snapped.

“Rendezvous with who?” The mercenary scowled at the pilot, who had fallen silent.

“Ourselves,” Danse rubbed his hands together. “The Listening Post. It was one of our agreed-upon rendezvous points.”

“Back to the bunker we go,” MacCready tipped his head back and shut his eyes. He was beat. Literally and figuratively. “Why are we going there and not to Lexington to find Haylen?”

“Because we can’t fly that far, and the more we fly the more of a chance there is of us getting shot down or found.” The paladin put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll explain everything later, RJ.”

Next thing he knew, they were landing and Danse was shaking his shoulder to wake him up.

“We’re almost there. We just have to make the walk to the bunker.” The paladin unbuckled his restraints and stood up. “It isn’t too far.”

MacCready felt like his entire body was made of lead when he tried to move. The issue with getting the crap beaten out of him wasn’t so much the beating itself; it was the soreness after. He tugged his restraints off and slowly stood. At least the world wasn’t spinning anymore.

“Rhys, make sure you get the hell out of here. I’ll see you in Lexington.” Danse stuck his head into the cockpit and nodded at the pilot, then helped the mercenary out of the vertibird. The machine’s engines powered down and Rhys unstrapped himself.

The walk to the bunker was a quiet one, partly because MacCready was exhausted and partly because they needed to be. While they could have handled a deathclaw a couple of days ago, they were in no shape to handle one now. He forced himself to remain vigilant, watching every bush and rock that looked a little too lizard-like for his satisfaction.

Danse kept an arm under his shoulder to keep him steady as they walked. They both paused when they reached the door of the bunker. Something wasn’t right, even though everything appeared normal. There were still deathclaw scratches on the wall and still the same birds chirping.

The paladin opened the door and immediately hauled him away from the doorway. NH-87 and Maxson were waiting for them inside. The paladin kept a tight grip on his arm, as if to keep him from running. He knew it was to keep him from acting out.

“Your assumption was correct,” Maxson said as the two of them walked out of the bunker. “The machine found its way here.” Machine?

“Elder,” Danse’s tone was warning. “Step away from Nora.” Always looking out for his superior.

“I’m surprised to see that you’re still alive, Robert,” NH-87 frowned. “Baker and his crew should have murdered you as soon as I left.”

“They tried, if you can’t tell,” MacCready straightened up as much as he could. He knew he was a muddy, bloody mess with an apparently crooked nose and a black eye. “I’m just exceptionally hard to kill.”

“Clearly,” NH-87 turned her nose away from him. “Elder Maxson, what do you suggest we do? The mercenary attempted to kill me just outside of Quincy after our meeting, and synth M7-97 is expendable.”

“Synth?” MacCready sputtered. “If there’s any synth here, it’s you, NH-87. Don’t give us that bullshit, either about Danse or about Quincy.”

“RJ,” Danse gave him a look.

Maxson paused, his cold eyes studying the three of them. “MacCready, how much faith do you have in that claim?” He crossed his arms.

“She told me herself,” the mercenary clenched his fists. “She told me in the Castle after I threw that courser under the bus. Then she knocked me out and hauled me down to Quincy so that Baker could kill me and I couldn’t tell anyone the truth.”

“Don’t,” Danse’s grip on his arm tightened.

“Is this true, Paladin?” The elder turned to face NH-87.

“What, you trust a Capital Wasteland mercenary more than you trust one of your own paladins?” The synth looked up from where she was fiddling with her Gauss rifle. MacCready didn’t like the fact that she had it in the first place, nonetheless that she was messing with the safety and power settings.

“After what has happened with Paladin—with Danse, I’m not sure who I can trust. MacCready’s judgment hasn’t failed me yet. Yours has.” Maxson noticed what she was doing as well and tucked one hand into his coat. MacCready knew he kept his revolver there.

“You know, you have a point. And Robert’s judgment is correct again. He’s telling you the truth, all of it. And since I can’t let him or you escape this scene, I guess I’ll explain the whole truth,” she switched the safety on her rifle off. “I am a synth replacement for Nora Howard, the sole survivor of Vault 111. And I’m here to gain control of the Brotherhood and the Minutemen in order to make way for the Institute into the Commonwealth. Is that simple enough?”

“There’s no way,” the elder growled. “No way that I allowed not one, but two synths into my inner circle!” He drew his revolver, only for her to silence him with a shot to the throat. His face fell into a look of shock as his revolver clattered to the rocky ground and his hands rose to his throat. Danse looked away as he crumpled to the ground.

“Now you, M7-97, are no issue to me. Who’s going to listen to a disgraced Brotherhood paladin-turned-synth when he tells the whole Commonwealth about how his elder was killed by another paladin? It’s a one-way ticket to get yourself killed, right? When they all blame the obvious synth for two more deaths?” NH-87 started charging her rifle again. The electric hum in the air made MacCready’s gut wrench.

“The synth thing is complete bullshit!” MacCready protested. “You want to tell me that Paladin Danse, the most devout—“

“It’s true,” Danse cut him off. “It’s true. The data scan found it. It’s why I’m defecting.”

The mercenary opened and shut his mouth. Danse was a synth, and probably had been all along. Somehow he didn’t feel the same betrayal that he had when he’d learned the truth about NH-87.

“Now that our revelation is over, it’s time to get rid of you.” NH-87 took aim. “I can’t have you spreading the truth about me, now can I?”

“I’m not the only one who knows,” he didn’t know how to brace for a Gauss shot. Would it burn? Would it just punch right through him? Would he feel anything? It was funny how now, when he was faced with absolutely certain death, the pain was all he could think about. Not Duncan, not Lucy, not even Nora before she changed. Just how a Gauss shot would feel.

“I know,” she quirked her lips. “I’ll deal with the Railroad later.”

A bolt of electricity cracked the air open and pierced straight through him.


End file.
